{"id":411475,"date":"2026-04-22T09:04:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T09:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/411475\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T09:04:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T09:04:27","slug":"judge-rejects-settlement-offers-to-boys-manhandled-by-shopping-centre-security-staff-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/411475\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge rejects settlement offers to boys \u2018manhandled\u2019 by shopping centre security staff \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A judge has refused to approve settlement offers made to two boys who were allegedly manhandled and violently thrown out of the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre by security staff. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Judge John Martin described the offers as \u201cinadequate\u201d after being told how the boys were treated by uniformed security staff in a public area of the west Dublin shopping mall. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Matthew Jolley, for the boys, gave evidence to the Circuit Civil Court of the \u201cdefamation, wrongful imprisonment and assault\u201d of his two clients. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He told the court how Denis Constantin Cretu (13), of Annagh Court, Waterville, Blanchardstown, Dublin, was offered \u20ac15,000 as a settlement and Cillian Kian Murtagh (15), of Clonduff Grove, also Blanchardstown, was offered \u20ac10,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Counsel said he was asking the court to reject the offers. \u201cI estimate that the boys should get compensation of \u20ac35,000 each,\u201d Jolley said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The judge said he would consider increased compensation offers of \u20ac25,000 for each of the boys. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He granted Jolley time to contact solicitors for Bidvest Noonan (RoI) Limited, a security firm employed by Blanchardstown Shopping Centre Nominee Limited, also named as a defendant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Jolley later reported to the court that while there was an indication of small increases to the offers, these came nowhere near a figure he would recommend to the court or what was suggested as appropriate by the court itself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Counsel had earlier told the judge how the boys were frightened, intimidated and shocked by what had happened in front of a large number of people when they were accused of not paying. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Both boys, he said, were grabbed by their collars and marched out of the centre, resulting in soft tissue injuries. He said Cretu was punched in the face, which had caused his lip to bleed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Jolley said he had seen CCTV footage of the incident and felt the boys would succeed in a full trial of their case if the court rejected the offers made to them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The judge refused to approve the offers, meaning the cases will be heard at trial by another judge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge has refused to approve settlement offers made to two boys who were allegedly manhandled and violently&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[180656,613,13553,615,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-411475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-bidvest-noonan","tag-blanchardstown","tag-circuit-court","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}