The jury in the trial of Riad Bouchaker, who denies attempting to murder three children on Parnell Square in Dublin in 2023, has been viewing CCTV footage showing a man’s movements around the city centre in the hours before the knife attacks that left one girl with severe brain damage.
Mr Bouchaker, 52, of no fixed address, is on trial at the Central Criminal Court charged with the attempted murder of two girls and one boy, assault causing serious harm to a care worker, assaulting three other people and producing a knife in a manner likely to intimidate, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges before a jury of nine men and three women, reports RTE.
Garda John Heatherton told prosecution counsel Karl Finnegan SC that CCTV footage was collected from premises across the city centre including the Ilac Centre on Henry Street and businesses on O’Connell Street and Parnell Square.
The first piece of footage showed a man leaving a De Paul hostel on Little Britain Street at 11.06am wearing a black cap, black jacket and blue jeans and carrying a backpack, who then walked to the Ilac Shopping Centre and went to a café in Dunnes Stores, reports RTE.
Later footage showed the man going to a lift area at 11.31am where he stood for several minutes appearing to go through paper documents, before appearing to rip up some paper and discard it in the direction of a Christmas tree inside the Ilac centre.
Earlier, the mother of another child allegedly targeted by Mr Bouchaker told the trial her son was five years old at the time, that she received a call from a teacher saying he had been hurt but was “okay,” and that when she met him in the ambulance at Crumlin Hospital he was watching cartoons on a phone given to him by a garda, reports RTE.
Doctors found the boy had a wound on his neck requiring paper stitches and dressing. The trial continues before Mr Justice Tony Hunt, reports RTE.
Tell us your thoughts in the Facebook post and share this with your friends.
