Girl, 17, appears in court on 75th conviction

An out-of-control teenage girl has been detained for five months on her 75th conviction.

The Tallaght girl (aged 17) has been back at the Children’s Court in Dublin for a number of charges relating to petty thefts, trespassing and assaults to be dealt with. The girl who has become homeless in recent months had admitted 27 charges bringing her criminal record to 75 convictions.

She has attacked gardaí, tried to rob a drunk man of his money, took part in petty thefts and once, the court heard how she had driven an elderly couple to move from her neighbourhood.

The girl had been described as having had enormous personal problems which she developed after her parents separated. She was constantly arrested in patterns of offences which saw her get drunk, abuse gardaí and then violently resist arrest.

Judge Early was told that the out-of-school girl had pleaded guilty to all the charges and was already in custody in Mountjoy Prison on remand.

Her father who was in court said he believed his girl would end up as another statistic. He has earlier estimated that he has come to court over 200 times in connection with his troubled daughter’s cases.

He had earlier told the court that after he and his wife separated he struggled at being a lone parent and his daughter started to go wild.

He has also claimed that the South Western Area Health Board in Dublin did not intervene for his daughter’s welfare after he had appealed to them for help three years ago.

The court had also heard earlier that when the girl was 14 her social worker left her job and no replacement was assigned to the case.

Defence counsel Ms Sinead McMullen said that the girl had a difficult domestic background and had recently become homeless. It had been planned that she would move out of Dublin to live with her mother but that arrangement broke down.

She then had nowhere to live and as a result High Court proceedings were taken against the health board over her and her younger brother’s welfare.

Ms McMullen said that these proceedings in relation to the girl could become mute as she will turn 18 shortly.

Since being remanded in custody the girl has been getting on well and is attending AA meetings, Ms McMullen said.

She also plans to take part in a Christmas play in the jail and is doing courses there.

Ms McMullen said that the girl has accepted that alcohol has had a role to play in most of the offences but she denies that she is an alcoholic.

“I have been trying to get her help for three-and-a-half years. She is nearly 18 and it looks like they (the health board) will have reached the finishing post ahead of me,” the girl’s father said.

The man, who on several occasions had told the court that he did not receive help from social services for his daughter despite being asked to assist her several times, added: “I’m afraid that she could end up as another statistic. But as long as I live I will do all I can. That is it, thank you,” he said ending what would become his last time to address the Children’s Court over his troubled daughter.

Detaining the girl for five months Judge Early told her: “It appears that the one common denominator to every offence before the court is the excess consumption of alcohol. That is the real problem you have to address and I hope you will have the opportunity to do so.”

The girl, who remained silent during the hearing, has repeatedly found herself in trouble with the law in recent years. Last December she had been detained in Oberstown Girls’ Centre, with her father hoping that she would benefit from that facility’s educational programmes.

However, the girl then turned 17 and appealed to the High Court that she was too old to be held there and was released.

This had been against the wishes of her father. After he disagreed with his daughter’s decision to appeal, her case was brought to the High Court which ruled that the girl’s instructions to her lawyers took precedent over her father’s. She was then released shortly before her recent spate of offences began.

Earlier this year the court had also heard how she had driven an elderly couple out of their home.

Her former neighbour, a pensioner, said that he was driven to sell his home and move 70 miles to get away from the teenage girl who he said had terrorised, victimised and harassed him and his wife.

The man, who is in his late sixties, said that after spending years being terrorised by the girl and his family he and his wife decided to move.

His wife, also in her sixties, had suffered a nervous breakdown after the years of torment, he had explained.

In one of the incidents he told that his home had been pelted with eggs and he had gone outside to investigate what was happening.

He said he found the girl and her younger brother, who lived next door, throwing the eggs and missiles at his windows. The girl left the scene as the victim pleaded her brother to stop.

The girl, who by then had been the subject of psychiatric assessments, then returned and “grabbed the man from behind, ripped his shirt and tried to scrape his face,” the court had heard.

The man then tried to restrain the girl which led to her lashing out, scraping him on his chest followed by a kick in his groin leaving him in considerable pain.

He said the girl had attacked him and kicked him in the groin, repeatedly pelted his house with missiles, threatened to fire bomb his home, incited her younger brother to engage in lewd behaviour in front of his wife, caused his wife to have a nervous breakdown and forced him to move not just out of Tallaght but 70 miles away to get away from her..

“When she attacked me she tried to scrape me and I grabbed her by the hands. She then ripped my shirt, I held onto her wrists and she kicked me.”

“Her gang was at the gate and she was screaming to them to get her older brother who is a big man. If he had come out to me I would have ended up in hospital.

“She spat at me, I still have marks from her nails. I didn’t have a button left on my shirt. Later that day I met her and asked her: ‘When are you going to grow up?’ She said she would bomb my house.

“That night she threw two blocks through my window.

“We have since move and are the fourth family in the area to move out to get away from her.

“We are now 70 miles away, my wife had a nervous breakdown, it affected her mental health,” he said.

“She got her younger brother to masturbate in front of my wife, got him to say he would like to have sex and oral sex with her,” the pensioner had told the court.