The trial of Riad Bouchaker began on Wednesday in a Dublin court, with the mother of one of the stabbing victims recounting how her young daughter’s life was changed in the November 2023 stabbing attack, for which the Algerian national has been charged.
The five-year-old girl had been stabbed near a daycare, or crèche, in Dublin’s Parnell Square on November 23, 2023, along with two other young children. The jury was told that 52-year-old Bouchaker had intended to kill the three children when he allegedly stabbed them, targeting their heads, necks, upper bodies, and chests.
When asked by the prosecuting counsel how her daughter is now, she said the little girl, who is now nearly eight, is in a wheelchair, is non-verbal, and can only answer yes or no questions through the use of blinking, per RTE. She said her daughter had just turned five at the time of the attacks.
She said she would normally drop her daughter off at daycare in the morning and would pick her up from school on her way home from work in the city center. The daycare workers would drop her off and collect her from school. The mother told the court that she almost didn’t go into work that day, saying that she had been feeling unwell.
She described receiving a phone call from the daycare’s owner at 1:45 pm, saying the owner was crying and told her "oh my god, oh my god," before saying her daughter had been stabbed.
Her daughter was taken to Temple Street hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery on her heart. She suffered blood loss and the mother told the court her daughter had gone without oxygen for 40 minutes, leading to severe brain damage, particularly affecting her motor skills. She said her daughter also suffers from dystonia following the attack.
Prosecuting counsel Karl Finnegan told the jury that Bouchaker was responsible for the attacks, and that he intended to kill the children. Bouchaker has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder of the three children, as well as assaulting and causing serious harm to a daycare worker, assaulting two other children and a passerby who intervened, and possession of a knife.
Leading up to the stabbings, the children were being brought to an after school program by daycare staff, the prosecution said, adding that Bouchaker approached the group and began stabbing. Daycare worker Leanne Flynn intervened and was stabbed.
Bouchaker claimed to gardai that he had been upset over receiving a letter stating his application for social welfare had been refused and that he was not in the right state of mind. He claimed that he had done something bad, but did not mean to kill or harm the children. Finnegan said that Bouchaker has been found fit to stand trial and that there was no suggestion he was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the attack.
In the wake of the November 2023 attack, the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) released a piece stating that the attack "is the umpteenth warning that disinformation can have appalling consequences in real life. A shameful script that so many times in the past brought tragedy in Europe was played out again in Dublin a few nights ago: a dramatic news story circulates, disinformation and racism jump on it spreading baseless accusations against an entire minority group, hungry mobs take to the streets and the violence begins."
Protests and riots broke out following the attack, and MMA fighter Conor McGregor spoke out against the attack, saying at the time, "there is grave danger among us in Ireland that should never be here in the first place."
