A mother whose young daughter is severely disabled after being stabbed during the attack at Dublin’s Parnell Square said her family’s life has changed “unrecognisably”.
The woman was among parents, creche workers and bystanders affected by the attack on November 23rd, 2023, whose victim impact statements were read at the Central Criminal Court.
She and her husband will be caring for their daughter, now aged eight, for the rest of their lives “and we need to be sure she will be looked after when we are gone”.
“Learning about disability has been eye-opening, but I wouldn’t wish this on anyone,” she added.
Her statement was read by Det Garda Shimna Ní Mháirtin during a hearing on Monday to decide the sentence to be imposed on Riad Bouchaker (52), a native of Algeria of no fixed abode who was convicted of eight offences, including the attempted murder of three children.
Another mother whose daughter suffered a head injury described Bouchaker as a “monster” who had “stolen the innocence” of the 13 children who had witnessed his “evil and cowardly” attack. “He is the monster that haunts our nightmares,” she said.
Childcare worker Leanne Flynn, who suffered serious injuries when stabbed while trying to protect the children, said her life and that of her partner and two young children had changed drastically.
Addressing Bouchaker directly, she told him “harming innocent children is unforgivable”.
Judge Tony Hunt will rule on November 16th on the sentences to be imposed. There was serious rioting in Dublin on the evening of the attack in 2023.
The three attempted murder charges against Bouchaker relate to the severely injured five-year-old girl and to a six-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy.
The six-year-old girl was discharged from hospital a day after having surgery to repair a non-penetrative laceration to her scalp and dislodging of a skull fragment. The boy had a nick to his neck treated with paper stitches and three holes in the hood of his jacket.
Bouchaker was found guilty of intentionally inflicting serious harm on Flynn and will also be sentenced for assault causing harm to two other children.
One was a six-year-old girl who had a bump on her head, a nick behind her ear and a clump of hair cut.
In a victim impact statement, her mother said her daughter had told her, when she was lying on the ground on Parnell Square, the attacker “looked like a real man but he was actually a bad man” and that day was “more worser than any bad days”.
Her daughter continues to be afraid of crowds and loud noises,
The other child was a five-year-old boy who had a small cut and a graze under his arm as well as slashes to his clothing.
His mother, in her statement, told Bouchaker he had left her son and the other children with “terrifying memories that haunt them to this day”.
Addressing Bouchaker in Irish, the woman said she, like him, was an immigrant to Ireland and she and her son loved Ireland, “the best country in the world”.
“I have such a depth of dread that you will ever walk the streets of Ireland again,” she said.