A childcare worker has told a court how she was injured while tackling a man who was “ferociously jabbing” at children in her care with a knife in Dublin three years ago.
The Central Criminal Court in Dublin has heard multiple children and an adult were injured in the attack, including a girl who is now in a wheelchair and non-verbal.
Riad Bouchaker, aged 52 and of no fixed address, is charged with attempted murder of two girls and one boy, and assault causing serious harm to care worker Leanne Flynn, in Parnell Square East in Dublin City on November 23 2023.
He is also charged with assaulting three other people and with producing a 36cm kitchen knife. He has pleaded not guilty to all eight charges.
On the fourth day of the trial, Ms Flynn described how she was collecting children on Parnell Square at around 1.30pm.
Under questioning from Karl Finnegan SC, for the prosecution, she described how they were lined up by railings in pairs when “a male dressed in dark clothes grabbed my attention”.
She described the man as being “fat” and having “sallow skin” with “very big eyes” and with “darkish hair”.
She said he was “at his bag… like he was looking for something” when he started to walk “towards the children in a crouched motion, very hurriedly and just started ferociously jabbing”.
Ms Flynn said she “let out a shout and asked him what he was doing”, and then “ran after him and grabbed him from behind”.
She described how she grabbed the back of his jacket as he “was trying to still continuously jab” and “pulled him back from the children”.
She said she “swung him” and that there was a “tussle”, adding “he stabbed me in that tussle”.
Ms Flynn described how she “didn’t actually see the knife”, but presumed it was the same one used on the children – and said “I felt something wet but it didn’t register with me” that she was hurt.
She said the man “went to try and go back to the children again” and “I went back over and grabbed him for a second time”.
Some of the children had moved but some were “frozen with panic”, she said.
At that point, she said “other adults intervened” and she started “grabbing the children and telling them to run”.
She described seeing one girl with “so much blood on her face and her neck” she could not tell where she had been stabbed.
She sat at the steps of a nearby hotel with some of the children where she was helped by an elderly man and a hotel worker.
She said she asked the worker to take the children into the hotel as “they don’t need to see this”.
At that point, she was “really lightheaded” and was finding it “hard to breathe”.
Ms Flynn said she was taken to the nearby Mater hospital, placed into an induced coma and underwent two emergency surgeries.
She said her lung had collapsed, her diaphragm was severed which caused her second lung to collapse and her spleen and part of her stomach were removed.
She said she spent a month in hospital and has not been able to return to work since.
Under cross examination, Ms Flynn was asked if, when she grabbed the man, “he had wide eyes” and if it would be “fair” to describe him as “frantic” – to which she replied “yes”.
Asked if, at that moment she thought it appeared “there was something wrong with” the man, she responded “no”.
She said “the children seemed to be his main focus”, he seemed “hellbent” on getting to the children.
The court also heard from Cathal Faughnan, a clinical nurse manager who worked at the children’s hospital on Temple Street, near Parell Square.
He described how he happened to be en route to O’Connell street at 1.30pm on the day of the attack.
He noticed the children as he has “worked with kids” for years, he said, and described them as “quite idyllic, having their own bit of fun”.
Mr Faughnan became visibly upset on the stand as he outlined how he could “see a gentleman in his 50s, looking very suspicious looking”.
He described him as a “stocky gentleman” wearing a jacket and glasses with what he thought were tinted lenses and who he also believed had a moustache.
That man started “going up and down the line pulling out kids”, he said, and said it was “like he wanted to get every kid that was in the line”.
“The care worker was trying to protect them as much as she physically could,” he added.
He said there were screams and cries and people started to gather and the assailant was “brought to the ground” and another man picked up the knife, brought it across the road and put it in bushes.
Questioned by the defence lawyer, he confirmed it looked like the man was “trying to get at every kid that was there” and “to do them harm”.
He also agreed that “every strike was to the upper body”.
During his evidence, Mr Faughnan also described how, after presenting his work badge, he assessed two of the children who had laceration wounds, one to their neck and the other to the top of their head.
Caio Benicio, a delivery driver, who said he intervened in the attack, hitting the assailant with his helmet, also gave evidence on Monday.
The Brazilian described how he had delivered his first order of the day and was returning to the Parnell Street and O’Connell Street area to wait for more orders.
He was travelling through Parnell Square when he “heard a lot of noise, a lot of people screaming and running”.
At first, he said, he thought it was a fight, but realised it was between a man and woman and there were “little kids involved”.
“I saw them pulling the little girl, the big man was pulling the girl from the woman and she was trying to keep the kid, so I realised it was something not common.”
When he got closer he said he saw the man “grab the girl with his left hand” and “start to stab the girl in the chest” with “a big sharp knife”.
Mr Benicio said he stopped his motorbike and tried to run towards them but was slow because he had had knee surgery two months earlier.
He took off his helmet, he said, and hit the man in the head with it before the helmet “slipped” from his hand and fell into the basement of a nearby building.
He then punched the man “two or three” times but “when I realised he couldn’t react and I saw blood in his mouth I stepped back”.
Others started to kick the man, he said, until two women “stood in front of him and said ‘we are not savage here’”.
The defence barrister described Mr Benicio’s actions as “phenomenally brave, courageous, honourable” but suggested his memory may have been “confused by shock and trauma”, something with which Mr Benicio disagreed.
The lawyer suggested “there is only so much of this you can remember”.
Mr Benicio said he was “100% sure” the man had stabbed the girl.
The final person to give evidence on Monday was Erica Hernon, who was a passenger in a car driven by her husband when she witnessed the attack.
She said she had a clear view of the children, a woman and a man standing next to them when “out of nowhere I saw a large knife”.
She described it as having “a black handle maybe like a kitchen knife” and “the size of your forearm”.
The woman tried to stop the man, Ms Hernon said.
She described how the man “rugby tackled” a girl, holding her high in one arm “like a baby” and held the knife to the girl’s throat with her other hand.
Her husband stopped the car and rang emergency service, she said.
As people started to run towards the incident she said she rolled down the window shouting a warning that the man had a knife.
She said she saw “a bald man rugby tackled” the assailant and “a motorcycle helmet in the air”, before a bus obscured her view of what was happening.
