Jury views CCTV footage of movements in hours before Parnell Square stabbing

Eoin Reynolds

The jury in the trial of Riad Bouchaker, who denies attempting to murder three children on a Dublin street, has been viewing CCTV footage showing the movements of a man around the city centre hours before the knife attacks that left one girl with severe brain damage.

Garda John Heatherton told prosecution counsel Karl Finnegan on Thursday morning that he and his colleagues collected CCTV footage from premises in the city centre, including the Ilac Centre on Henry St and various businesses on O'Connell St and Parnell Square, where the children suffered their injuries.

The first piece of footage, he said, showed a man leaving a De Paul hostel on Little Britain St at 11.06am wearing a black cap, black jacket, blue jeans and carrying a backpack.

A male matching that description walked to the Ilac Shopping Centre, with CCTV footage showing him going to a cafe in Dunnes Stores where he sat with another man.

Heatherton said the men left Dunnes and went to a lift area at 11.31am where they stood for some minutes and appeared to be going through paper documents.

Minutes later, the male with the black cap was recorded inside the Ilac Centre, where he appeared to rip up some paper and discard it in the direction of a Christmas tree.

Earlier this morning, the mother of one of the children whom it is alleged Bouchaker tried to murder told the trial that her son was five years old at the time.

She received a call from a teacher in the early afternoon to say there had been an incident and her son was hurt but he was "okay".

Her son was to be taken to Crumlin Hospital, where she met him in the back of the ambulance.

Her son was looking at cartoons on a phone that had been given to him by a garda that was traveling in the ambulance.

When doctors examined the boy, they found he had a wound on his neck which required paper stitches and dressing.

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, and assault causing serious harm to a care worker, at Parnell Square East in Dublin City on November 23rd, 2023.

He is further charged with assaulting three other people and with producing a knife in a manner likely to intimidate.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and his trial before a jury of nine men and three women is expected to last up to five weeks.

The trial continues before Judge Tony Hunt and a jury of nine men and three women.