A WOMAN HEARD a man saying “sh*t Irish, sh*t f***ing Irish” in an ‘aggressive’ manner as he walked along a Dublin city centre street near to where a knife attack later that afternoon left a number of children with stab injuries and one of them with severe brain damage, a court has heard.

The trial of Riad Bouchaker (52) also heard that when gardaí opened a rucksack found at the scene of the stabbing, they found packaging for a 24cm carving knife.

Mr Bouchaker, 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 23 November 2023.

He is further charged with assaulting two other children and an adult male 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.

Patricia Byrne this morning told prosecution counsel Carol Doherty BL that she was walking along Mary St in Dublin when she heard a man being ‘quite aggressive in his words’.

When she looked to her right, she heard him saying, “sh*t Irish, sh*t f***ing Irish”.

As she walked on, she heard him say the same thing to a group of English, Welsh and Scottish tourists. The tourists were laughing, she said, so she told them it was “not funny”.

Ms Byrne went into a shop and emerged a short time later to see the same man approach two women with buggies. She walked on a little further and he walked out of her view, she said.

She remembered the man was wearing dark clothes and said she just got a “quick glance” at him. Ms Byrne identified herself and the man she saw on CCTV footage.

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