DUBLIN RAPE CRISIS Centre has welcomed the news that the Director of Public Prosecutions is to appeal the sentence given to businessman Anthony Lyons, who was found guilty of sexually attacking a woman.
Lyons, a businessman, had five-and-a-half years of his six-year sentence suspended by Justice Desmond Hogan last month after being found guilty of sexually attacking a woman near Griffith Avenue in Dublin two years ago.
Judge Hogan also ordered Lyons to pay €75,000 in compensation to the victim.
At the time, Dublin Rape Crisis Centre chief executive Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop told TheJournal.ie that the sentence was “unusual”.
The centre was not involved with the case but O’Malley-Dunlop said that though six years is not lenient, getting Lyons to pay compensation and suspending jail time “questions the fairness of the system because a resourced person can avoid a custodial sentence by the provision of a large sum of money”.
Tonight, RTÉ reports that the DPP has decided to appeal the sentence given to Lyons on the grounds of “undue leniency”.
O’Malley Dunlop said:
We’re very pleased that the DPP has decided to appeal this. We hope the victim herself will feel that she is getting justice by the DPP appealing this lenient sentence.
She added that the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre expected to hear that the sentence would be appealed, adding that “one of the things we said at the time was we hoped that the DPP would have this sentence appealed”.
Dublin Rape Crisis Centre runs a 24-hour freephone helpline on 1800 77 88 88.