“One victim impact statement makes reference to how he [Lyons] had made him feel \u2026 and the innocence of not understanding what the defendant was doing to him and how it has broken something inside him,” Ms Marks told the court.<\/p>\n
“It makes references to that child suffering nightmares and waking up scared shaking and crying.”<\/p>\n
Ms Marks cited another statement in referencing a struggle to focus in school.<\/p>\n
“A number of the children are now obtaining psychological assistance to assist them through the trauma they’ve experienced and for the parents that have suffered alongside their children,” she said.<\/p>\n
“What was taken from them cannot be returned, the trauma will follow them long into their future and the consequences of the crimes did not end when the abuse stopped.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Connor Lyons will be eligible for parole in June 2026. (ABC News: Bruce Atkinson)<\/p>\n
Lyons read a letter in court apologising to the victims of his crimes.<\/p>\n
“I understand the effect of my crimes and the effects it has had on the victims’ families and wider community \u2014 I take full responsibility for what my actions have caused,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I accept the court will order that I complete the appropriate courses to further help my release into the community and be a valuable member of the community.”<\/p>\n
When handing down his sentence Judge Glen Cash said he took into consideration Lyons’s cooperation.<\/p>\n
“As you must know your crimes are serious and as a community we will not tolerate those who predate on children for the purpose of sexual pleasure,” Judge Cash said.<\/p>\n
“It is especially egregious in this case that there is [sic] families that trusted you with their children and you betrayed that trust by the abuse which we have heard described.”<\/p>\n
Lyons was sentenced to five years in prison.<\/p>\n
He is required to serve at least one third of the sentence and has already spent more than 350 days in custody.<\/p>\n
He will be eligible for parole in June next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An ex-surf coach will be eligible for parole in six months after pleading guilty to 31 child sex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[183653,183652,183654,43,44,183655,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-327288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-connor-john-christopher-lyons","9":"tag-connor-lyons","10":"tag-connor-lyons-paedophile","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-surf-coach-child-abuse-queensland","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}