A MAN HAS been found guilty of the attempted murder of three children in Parnell Square attack in November 2023.

Riad Bouchaker (52) was found guilty by a jury this afternoon.

Bouchaker was found guilty of causing serious harm to crèche worker Leanne Flynn and assault causing harm to two other children and a teenager on 23 November 2023.

The attacks left one girl with a devastating, life-long brain injury and sparked riots across Dublin city.

The jurors today rejected Bouchaker’s defence that in relation to this child, he had not reached the level of intent to sustain a charge of attempted murder.

They also rejected his position that there was no evidence that a small laceration to one boy’s neck was caused with a knife, rather than through the ordinary “rough and tumble” of a child’s life.

Instead, the jury agreed with the State’s case, advanced by Karl Finnegan SC, that there was no “innocent answer” for Bouchaker’s actions and that the only reasonable conclusion is he intended to kill.

During the trial, the jurors viewed the 36cm carving knife that Bouchaker used in his attempts to murder the children.

They spent just less than five hours over two days considering their verdicts, which were unanimous in relation to each count. Mr Justice Tony Hunt exempted the jury from further service for 25 years and thanked them for their verdicts, telling them he believed they were “entirely in line with the evidence”.

Family members of some of the children who were injured in the attack hugged one another. Many of them have attended throughout the entire trial and pre-trial hearings that began last year.

The judge will hear submissions from the prosecution and defence at a sentencing hearing on 12 October.

Frequent breaks

The child victims, who are now aged between seven and nine, will also be invited to make a statement to the court.

Victim impact statements can be given in-person, in writing or read into the record by lawyers, gardaí or family members. Mr Justice Hunt asked that the children be informed that they have the option if they wish to make a statement.

He also certified Bouchaker’s defence for a neuropsychologist’s report ahead of sentencing. The court set aside a half day for the hearing.

Bouchaker became agitated following the verdicts and was led away by members of the prison service.

He has been in Cloverhill prison since he was charged in 2023. The charges of attempted murder and causing serious harm carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Throughout the trial Bouchaker has been aided by an Arabic interpreter and a mediator who communicated his needs to the court.

Bouchaker suffered a brain injury following surgery in 2021 which was exacerbated when he was struck on the head by people who intervened to prevent him from stabbing more children.

He required frequent breaks throughout his trial so that he could rest and have consultations with his lawyers to explain what was happening.

Bouchaker, of no fixed address, had denied the attempted murder of two girls and one boy, and assault causing serious harm to crèche worker Leanne Flynn, at Parnell Square East in Dublin City on 23 November, 2023.

He also denied assaulting two other children and then-teenager Alan Loren-Guille and producing a knife in a manner likely to intimidate.

The jury of nine men and three women began their deliberations yesterday following a three-week trial.

During the trial, they heard evidence that Bouchaker was upset after failing to secure social welfare payments.

He went to his hostel on Little Britain St in Dublin city centre, armed himself with a 36cm carving knife and walked to Parnell Square where he asked several people for the location of a school.

He waited in the area for about one hour before noticing that 13 primary school students aged five and six were lining up as they prepared to be taken to an after-school crèche.

Bouchaker stood at a bus stop in front of the children for one minute and 40 seconds until the only other adult nearby was Leanne Flynn.

When Flynn crouched down to zip up the coat of one of the children, Bouchaker removed the knife from a rucksack strapped to his chest.

He moved quickly towards one little girl and stabbed her in the chest, causing a perforation to the right ventricle of her heart.

Dragged away

Flynn dragged Bouchaker away but suffered a stab wound to her back as she did so. Bouchaker then continued his attack on the children until passersby intervened and knocked or dragged him to the ground.

In cross-examination, Flynn told the trial that Bouchaker seemed “hell bent on getting the children”.

The little girl suffered brain damage due to blood loss and will require lifelong care.

Another girl had an 8cm gash to the top of her head and lost a fragment of skull due to a wound to the back of her head. The other children suffered what were described as superficial wounds.

Loren-Guille, a 17-year-old from France who moved to Ireland one month before the attack, took the knife from Bouchaker’s hand.

Loren-Guille suffered a scratch to his finger and a nick to his face and was the subject of the final charge of assault causing harm.

In what the defence characterised as “gallic indifference”, Loren-Guille said he suffered a ‘simple scratch’ and described the injuries as ‘nothing important’.

At the conclusion of his evidence, the judge thanked Mr Loren-Guille and said: “You are not only very brave, but modest as well.”

Flynn required surgery to remove her spleen and to repair her diaphragm. She remained in hospital for one month and continues to be at risk of infectious disease due to her spleen removal.

More than a dozen witnesses who came across the scene of the attack gave evidence at Bouchaker’s trial.

In his garda interviews, Bouchaker told detectives that if the department of social welfare had helped him, “this wouldn’t have happened”.

Bouchaker told gardaí that he is an Irish national and that the department’s decision to refuse him social welfare “made me go into blackout”. He said it felt like “this country is telling me to leave”, that he was not in his right mind at the time and was in need of help.

He denied that he went for the smallest children he could find during his attacks.