Mother plans to move house to divert son from crime

A Ballymun mother has decided to move house to help her son quit crime, a court heard today.

Her 16-year-old boy, who appeared at the Dublin Children’s Court before Judge Mary Collins, already had 10 previous convictions for a string of car theft, motoring, public order and possession of weapons offences.

Judge Collins had earlier detained him for five months for these matters, and the teenager yesterday admitted another charge for a burglary on October 19.

He had been caught red-handed by gardaí when he and a number of other youths broke into a house, she was told.

The boy admitted his role in the burglary from the outset and was extremely co-operative with investigating gardaí, the court heard.

In mitigation, defence counsel Mr Seamus Clarke, told the court how the teenager had quit school when he was 13. He then started drinking heavily and was using cannabis regularly, which had caused him to commit the offences.

However, since being detained in St Patrick’s Institution he has battled his addiction problems and is to be moved into a special wing of the detention centre for in-mates who have successfully quit drugs.

The teenager now hopes that when released in March he would be fit to look for work, Mr Clarke said.

Separately, the teenager’s mother has made efforts to ensure that he will not resume his pattern of offending when he is released.

Mr Clarke outlined how she has applied to her local authority to be re-housed outside the Ballymun area with the hope that this would prevent him falling back into his earlier pattern of committing crime.

Judge Collins agreed to imposed a detention term concurrent to the one he is already serving so his time in custody would not be prolonged telling him: “I hope things go well for you.”