Accused 'hell-bent' on attacking children, trial hears

A childcare worker has described how a man accused of the attempted murder of three children came at one of the children in a crouched motion and began ferociously stabbing her.

Leanne Flynn had collected 13 five and six-year-olds from school to bring them to their afterschool on 23 November 2023, when she said Riad Bouchaker began jabbing and slashing at them with a kitchen knife.

The Central Criminal Court heard she grabbed the alleged attacker twice and was stabbed herself in the back.

She described the man as being "hell-bent" on getting to the children.

The court also heard from another witness, who said the man he saw was going up and down the line of kids, "like he wanted to get every kid in the line".

Mr Bouchaker has pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder of three children on 23 November 2023 at Parnell Square in Dublin.

He has also pleaded not guilty to assaulting Ms Flynn, two other children and a passer-by who intervened.

Ms Flynn, who is 38, had worked in the crèche since 2016. She said she would normally leave the crèche just before 1.30pm to collect the children at the local school three or four minutes away.

She said the children would be let out when teachers saw the crèche staff and would line up at the railings in pairs, a junior infants' child with a senior infants' child.

Ms Flynn said she would always be at the front of the line and another staff member would be at the back.

She said the children would normally talk to each other while she and the other worker counted them and helped them with their coats.

She added while the 13 children were lined up at the railings, a man dressed in dark clothes caught her attention.

Ms Flynn said he was at the bus stop, but a bus came and went and he remained there.

She noticed he was not moving off or going anywhere, he was just standing there looking around. She also noticed he was "at his bag" and seemed to be looking for something.

Ms Flynn said she was zipping up a little boy's coat when she saw the man walk towards the children.

He came towards a little girl "in a crouched motion" she said, and as he got closer, she saw him take a knife and begin "ferociously stabbing" the five-year-old.

Ms Flynn told the court she let out a shout, asked the man what he was doing and told him to get away from the children. She said she ran at him and grabbed him from behind.

She said the man was still trying to "continuously jab" the little girl.

Ms Flynn said this child was the first child he stabbed with the knife and seemed to be the person who got most of the jabbing.

She pulled him back from the children, he turned around and she saw him clearly.

She said the man looked confused when he saw her as if he was not expecting an adult or someone bigger to approach him.

Ms Flynn said she "kind of swung him" and they were in a tussle.

During the tussle, she said the man stabbed her in the back left side. She did not know she had been stabbed at the time - she said she "felt something wet" but it did not register with her that she was hurt.

Ms Flynn described how the man went to try to go back to the children again and was swinging, jabbing and slashing the knife.

Some of the children had moved by this stage, she said, but some were frozen with panic.

Ms Flynn said she went back over and grabbed him a second time.

She said she let out a scream and shouted, "someone help me he has a knife" and other adults intervened.

Ms Flynn said she was grabbing the children and telling them to run. She moved them down the road to a nearby hotel where she sat down on steps as she was beginning to get light-headed.

She said she told the kids who were with her to stay where they were and that they were safe. As she sat on the steps, she saw a big commotion and saw loads of adults intervening and surrounding the man.

Ms Flynn said she had realised by this stage that she had been stabbed. An elderly man stayed with her and a woman came out from the hotel and asked how she could help.

Ms Flynn told her to take the children inside as they did not need to see what was going on.

The court heard Ms Flynn suffered multiple injuries and was in hospital for a month. Her lung collapsed when she was first stabbed and she told the court her diaphragm had been severed and collapsed her other lung.

She had to have her spleen removed and part of her stomach was injured as well.

Ms Flynn described how she had to be put into an induced coma and had two emergency surgeries. She has not yet managed to get back to work.

In cross examination, Mr Bouchaker’s defence counsel told Ms Flynn he was not suggesting that anyone else other than Riad Bouchaker caused the knife injuries to her or to anyone else. And he said she had intervened with "extraordinary courage".

Asked if she thought Mr Bouchaker who had suffered a brain injury in 2021, looked "frantic" or as if he had "something wrong" with him, Ms Flynn said he looked like he was shocked or as if she had disturbed him.

She said he did not look like there was something wrong with him. Ms Flynn said the children seemed to be the man’s main focus.

"I got hurt because I intervened," she said but he "seemed hell-bent on getting to the children".

Ms Flynn said she didn’t know how some of the children were hurt - whether he got them directly or whether he got them while he was waving or slashing the knife.

'Like he wanted to get every kid in the line'

The court also heard from clinical nurse manager, Cathal Faughnan, who worked in Temple Street children’s hospital and was walking on Parnell Square at the time.

He became emotional as he described seeing a group of around "eight or nine kids" lined up outside the gates of the school. He said they looked "quite idyllic".

He said he then saw a man in his 50s, looking very suspicious, about three metres away from the children.

Mr Faughnan became upset again as he said he saw the man going up the line pulling out kids.

He saw him with a knife and saw him "go at the kids", one child in particular, as well as another boy.

Mr Faughnan said the man was "physically going up and down the line of kids like he wanted to get every kid in the line that was there".

He described the man aiming "repeated downward strikes" towards the children’s necks.

Mr Faughnan added that the care worker was trying to protect them as much as she physically could.

Mr Faughnan said he heard screams and cries from the care worker and the children and thought he heard someone say "stop".

He said a man on a scooter or motorbike brought the assailant to the ground.He could see the man on the ground had a very dazed look. Mr Faughnan said another man had grabbed the knife and flicked it across the road into a green area.

At that stage, he said, he knew at least one child had been seriously injured so he went into the school to help.

Mr Faughan assessed two children. The first was a little boy who had a small superficial laceration to the left side of his neck. He said he had seen this boy being grabbed numerous times by the man.

He said he also assessed another small girl who had lacerations on the top part of her head.

The trial also heard from delivery driver Caio Benicio who hit Mr Bouchaker on the head with his motorcycle helmet.

He described how he was driving down Parnell Square East when he heard a lot of noise and saw people screaming and running. He thought at first that it was a "drug user fight" which he said was common in the city centre.

However, he said he then realised it was a "big man with a woman and a little kid" involved. He said the big man was pulling the girl from the woman, and she was trying to "keep the kid" and at that stage he realised it was "something not common".

He said he slowed down his motorbike and saw the man grab the little girl with his left hand and start to stab the girl in the chest with a "big sharp knife" in his right hand. He said he couldn't be sure how many times he stabbed the girl but believed it was three or four times.

Mr Benicio said he took off his helmet and hit the man in the head with it. He said his helmet slipped from his hand with the impact and fell into the basement of a building. The man fell on the floor and he gave him two or three punches. But he then realised the man couldn’t react and he saw blood on his mouth so he stepped back.

Mr Benicio said other people were trying to kick the man and hit him, but two women stood in front of him and said: "we are not savage".

He said he himself was in shock and was shaking.

Erica Hernon told the court she was in a car driving along Parnell Square with her husband and daughter. She said she saw a line of kids in bright blue tracksuit bottoms, aged between five and seven years old against a railing.

She saw a woman, who she presumed was a minder, and a man standing near her "hovering".

Ms Hernon said a knife appeared "out of nowhere". She said the man started to swing the knife while the woman "went into fight mode". The man went towards the children while the woman tried to stop him.

She described how he was holding a girl in one hand and was holding a knife in his other hand pointing at her throat. She said the woman was fighting to get the child into safety.

Ms Hernon said she rolled down the window and shouted that the man had a knife while her husband rang emergency services.

She said a lot of people started running - she saw a bald man rugby tackle the man with the knife and saw a motorcycle helmet up in the sky.

She and her husband waited for an ambulance to appear before driving on.