The mother of a five-yr-old girl stabbed near a crèche on Parnell Square in Dublin in 2023 has described seeing her daughter’s pink backpack and runners on the ground while medics attempted to resuscitate her.
A jury at the Central Criminal Court heard that 52-year-old Riad Bouchaker intended to kill three young children when he stabbed them on 23 November 2023, targeting their upper body, head, neck and chest areas, reports RTE.
He has pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder of two girls and a boy, as well as assaulting and causing serious harm to a crèche worker who tried to protect the children, and has also denied assaulting two other children and a passer-by who intervened, as well as possession of a knife.
Asked how her daughter was now, the mother of the girl — who is now almost eight — said she is currently in a wheelchair, non-verbal and only able to answer yes or no questions by blinking, reports RTE.
The woman told the trial she had not been feeling well on the day of the attack and had almost stayed home from work, and became emotional describing getting a phone call from the crèche owner at 1.45pm, who was crying and told her her daughter had been stabbed.
She said she ran towards the school and could see the area was cordoned off with ambulances, fire trucks and garda cars, and that gardaà let her through the cordon where she could see five paramedics working on her daughter, reports RTE.
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Her daughter was rushed to Temple Street hospital and taken straight into emergency surgery on her heart, with doctors working to control blood loss. The woman told the court her daughter had been without oxygen for 40 minutes, causing severe brain damage — particularly to her motor skills — and now suffers from dystonia, meaning her muscles do the opposite of what she wants, leaving her unable to do anything independently, reports RTE.
Prosecuting counsel Karl Finnegan told the jury that Bouchaker approached a group of children being brought to afterschool near Parnell Square by crèche staff and began stabbing them, with crèche worker Leanne Flynn intervening and being stabbed herself after grabbing him from behind and shouting at him to get away, sustaining a large laceration to her left side, reports RTE.
Mr Finnegan said members of the public brought Mr Bouchaker to the ground and a French man who witnessed the attack crossed the road, grabbed the accused’s hand, took the knife and threw it away, suffering a cut and a scratch in the process.
One girl suffered life-threatening injuries to her chest and heart, had no pulse and was not breathing when a critical care technician arrived, while a second girl had blood matted in her hair and bone fragments near the crown of her head, reports RTE.
In garda interviews, Mr Bouchaker said he had received a letter from social welfare that caused him distress, repeatedly said he was sick and not in his right state of mind, and did not mean to kill anyone, telling gardaà he had made a mistake and “done something” but did not know what it was.
However, Mr Finnegan said Mr Bouchaker had been found fit to stand trial and there was no suggestion he was suffering from a mental disorder at the time, with no defence being put forward based on his cognitive abilities, reports RTE.
The trial is expected to last up to five weeks, reports RTE.
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