Riad Bouchaker has been found guilty by unanimous jury verdict at the Central Criminal Court of the attempted murder of three young children at Dublin’s Parnell Square in November 2023.
One child, then a five-year-old girl, suffered what doctors described as “lifelong” and “life-limiting” severe brain and other injuries, requiring 24-hour care when she was stabbed in the heart on November 23rd, 2023.
The two other children subject to the attempted murder charges were a five-year-old girl and six-year-old boy. The girl underwent surgery to repair a non-penetrating laceration to her scalp and dislodging of a skull fragment and was discharged the following day.
The boy had a nick on his neck that was treated with paper stitches and three holes in the hood of his jacket.
The nine men and three women on Wednesday found Bouchaker guilty of eight charges, including the attempted murder charges, connected with the attack at Parnell Square.
Judge Tony Hunt, who will impose sentence on all charges in October, thanked the jury and told them the consequences of their decision were a matter for him. “No more needs to be said today,” he said.
The jury found Bouchaker guilty of intentionally inflicting serious harm on childcare worker Leanne Flynn, who suffered serious injuries after being stabbed in the back when she tried to protect the children. She underwent life-saving surgery, including the removal of her spleen, which was necessary to stop blood loss.
Care worker Leanne Flynn leaving the Central Criminal Court on Tuesday. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire
Bouchaker was found guilty of assault causing harm to two other children.
One, a six-year-old girl, had a bump on her head, a nick behind her ear, a clump of cut hair on her shoulder, her top and coat cut and she had wet herself. The second, a five-year-old boy, had a small cut near his nipple, a graze under his arm and minute slashes in his coat, tracksuit top and T-shirt.
The jury found him guilty of assault, causing harm to a French teenage chef, Alan Lorena Guille, who had minor scratches to his hand and face after wrenching the knife from Bouchaker’s hand.
He was also found guilty of producing a 36cm knife capable of inflicting serious injury.
The jury returned with its verdicts about 3.45pm after deliberating for more than four hours.
The judge asked that the verdicts be received in silence by the packed court, including Flynn and the parents and family members of the injured children. Bouchaker appeared to shake his head as the verdicts were read.
The jury had spent about one hour deliberating on Tuesday before being sent home just after 4pm. They went out at 10.43am today to resume their deliberations and were provided with additional documents requested the previous evening, including a transcript of the judge’s charge concerning the available verdicts, his summaries of evidence of four witnesses and the closing addresses by the prosecution and defence.
About 2.45pm, they returned and asked to see the coat, with the damaged hood, worn by the boy who was the subject of one of the attempted murder charges. The judge, noting the coat had not been forensically examined, said they would be provided with gloves for their examination of it.
Before sending them out on Tuesday, the judge asked the jury to “put emotions firmly to one side” and to be “objective”, “rational”, “logical” and “forensic” in assessing the evidence. The trial, he told them, must be decided on that evidence and had “nothing to do” with flag-waving, social media or burning vehicles.
The only verdict he would accept at this stage is a unanimous one, the judge also said.
Today was the 16th day of the trial of Bouchaker (52), a native of Algeria of no fixed abode, over the incident at Parnell Square East on November 23rd, 2023.
Bouchaker had denied all eight charges against him.
During a pretrial hearing, two psychiatrists disagreed on Bouchaker’s fitness to plead arising from an acquired brain injury, caused by pre-existing cognitive impairment combined with injuries suffered during interventions by members of the public at Parnell Square. He spent about three weeks in hospital after the incident.
Hunt ruled he was fit to stand trial with the assistance of an interpreter and an intermediary.
During his charge, the judge told the jury the available verdicts in relation to the five-year-old girl who suffered severe injuries were guilty of attempted murder or guilty of intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm. There was “a theoretical possibility” of not guilty on either charge.
The jury heard the girl was regarded as clinically dead at the scene and required emergency surgery to save her life, but she has been left with lifelong and life-limiting injuries. She cannot do anything by herself, cannot communicate except by blinking yes and no, is fed through a tube in her stomach, uses a wheelchair and suffers severe muscular and gut dystonia.
The judge said verdicts available in relation to the two other attempted murder counts were guilty of attempted murder or of assault causing harm, or not guilty of either, also a “theoretical possibility”.