A jury has been sworn in for the trial of Riad Bouchaker, who is accused of trying to murder three children in Dublin city centre three years ago.<\/p>\n
Mr Bouchaker, who is 52, and of no fixed abode, is charged with the attempted murder of two girls and one boy, as well as with assault causing serious harm to a childcare worker at Parnell Square East on 23 November 2023.<\/p>\n
He is further charged with three counts of assault causing harm to two other young children and a passerby, as well as one count of the production of a knife.<\/p>\n
He has pleaded not guilty to all eight charges.<\/p>\n
Before the jury was sworn, Mr Justice Tony Hunt told potential jurors this afternoon that it was inevitable that some or all of them may have seen the publicity arising out of the aftermath of the alleged events at Parnell Square on 23 November 2023.<\/p>\n
Although he said the aftermath had nothing to do with the events which are the subject matter of this trial.<\/p>\n
He said the jurors should not bring any baggage or opinion to this case.<\/p>\n
And he said they should ask themselves if anything they had seen or heard about these events would prevent them from being open minded or objective.<\/p>\n
He said Mr Bouchaker had the same fundamental entitlements as an accused in any case and was entitled to an openminded, unbiased, unprejudiced jury who could put extraneous matters out of their minds and concentrate on the evidence heard in court.<\/p>\n
The judge told the jury panel members he was asking them to do some soul searching if they were selected.<\/p>\n
The judge also told the potential jurors that Mr Bouchaker had suffered a benign brain tumour before these events and had brain surgery by way of a craniotomy in 2021.<\/p>\n
He said they would also hear that in the course of intervention by members of the public in the aftermath of the events in November 2023, Mr Bouchaker had suffered a head injury requiring significant treatment.<\/p>\n
The judge said this had an impact on Mr Bouchaker’s ability to sustain concentration and accommodations were needed to ensure he received a fair trial.<\/p>\n
The jurors heard that they may require more than ordinary patience and that Mr Bouchaker may require more frequent rests.<\/p>\n
He also has the assistance of an Arabic interpreter and an intermediary who will assist him with language and evidence.<\/p>\n
The judge told them that there was no suggestion that Mr Bouchaker was suffering from a mental disorder within the meaning of the legislation at the time of the alleged attacks and the jurors would not have to consider any special verdicts but would have to decide if he was guilty or not guilty.<\/p>\n
The judge said it would be a lengthy, perhaps painstaking process, but he said “we all have to accommodate ourselves to the reality of this situation” in order to make sure Mr Bouchaker has a fair trial.<\/p>\n
Nine men and three women were sworn in as the jury in the case.<\/p>\n
The trial is due to open on Wednesday morning and could last up to five weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A jury has been sworn in for the trial of Riad Bouchaker, who is accused of trying to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-489254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489254","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=489254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}