The Court of Criminal Appeal has quashed the sentence imposed on Anthony Lyons for sexual assault and ordered a six-year prison term, with the final four years suspended. The court said he should serve two years in custody, with an allowance for the sentence he had already served.
Lyons was convicted by a jury in June 2012 of sexual assault under section 2 of the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amendment) Act 1990, as amended. The offence took place on Griffith Avenue, Dublin, in October 2010. The court said he attacked a woman walking home at night, used violence to bring her to the ground, touched her breasts and buttocks, and digitally penetrated her. A passer-by intervened, and the woman identified Lyons to gardaí shortly afterwards.
At trial, Lyons did not significantly dispute the complainant’s account of the assault. He pleaded not guilty, arguing that prescribed medication had caused involuntary intoxication; the jury rejected that defence. The judgment records that he later admitted the assault in a written statement to gardaí.
The Circuit Criminal Court sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment, suspending five and a half years, and ordered him to pay €75,000 compensation. The Director of Public Prosecutions applied to the Court of Criminal Appeal under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993, arguing that the sentence was unduly lenient.
The appeal court said the trial judge had recognised the offence’s gravity but had given undue weight to the mitigating factors. It quashed the sentence and imposed a replacement sentence of six years, suspending the final four. It also ordered Lyons to keep the peace and be of good behaviour while in prison and for three years after release, and to undergo 12 months of post-release supervision. The court said he would remain on the sex offenders register for 10 years from conviction.
The judgment noted mitigating matters including Lyons’s previous good character, low assessed risk of reoffending, remorse, and the hardship of being sentenced again after serving the original custodial term. It also considered the complainant’s continuing trauma. The court treated the €199,500 civil settlement as separate from sentencing and not as mitigation, finding no evidence that it caused special hardship.
The court specified that Lyons had been convicted of sexual assault, not aggravated sexual assault or attempted rape, and said the sentence had to reflect the offence proved in this case.