Boy pleads not guilty to swing attack

A 15-year-old boy has pleaded not guilty to attacking and injuring a girl on a playground swing.

The boy, then aged 14, denies assault causing harm to the girl, aged 14, on a date in June last year at a playground in north Dublin.

Judge John O’Connor ordered a trial would take place in mid-November at the Dublin Children’s Court. The judge had to decide whether the case should stay in the juvenile court or instead be sent forward to the circuit court, which can impose lengthier sentences. The teen’s solicitor said the schoolboy, who was accompanied to court by his parents, is waiting to be assessed to see if he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The issue of his concentration levels has been raised in school.

The boy did not mean to flip the swing over, the court also heard. Judge O’Connor did not accept that the girl’s injuries were minor and he said they were actually very serious for a 14-year-old.

The defence solicitor then informed the court that her client would be pleading not guilty. In an outline of allegations, Garda Vincent Turley told the court the girl was playing on a round rocking swing when the defendant and another youth started pushing her aggressively. The boy was not known to the girl and she told him to stop but he kept pushing harder. The court heard she then “roared at him to stop” as the swing began going very high and she started crying. Garda Turley said the girl was repeatedly shouting at him to stop and the second youth stood back. It is alleged the defendant kept pushing the swing until it “flipped” and the girl went face first into the ground.

Garda Turley said it would also be claimed that the injured girl was “crying hysterically while the defendant was standing there laughing”.

It was alleged the girl suffered injuries to her nose, which required an operation, and to her ear and cheekbone.