Boy awaiting sentence for 40 crimes

A 17-year-old boy facing sentence for over forty offences has been remanded on continuing bail by the Dublin Children’s Court pending sentence.

He was also served with a book of evidence and returned for trial to the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for violently trying rob a couple after posing as an interested buyer for the car they had been selling.

The boy has been charged with attempted robbery of the man and woman, and possession of a wheel-brace as an offensive weapon, at Stoney Road, East Wall, Dublin 3, on April 17 last. He was aged 16 at the time of the alleged incident.

In an outline of the allegations, Garda Fergal Flynn of Fitzgibbon Street Station had told the court the north inner city Dublin boy arrived at the couple’s home claiming to be interested in buying the car they had for sale.

“They took it for a test drive and later were showing him where the wheel-brace was,” he alleged.

He said it was alleged the boy then took the wheel-brace and threatened them with telling them “to give him all their money” before fleeing.

Defence solicitor Michelle Finan had submitted that the boy did not have a history of violent crime, no injuries were sustained by the alleged injured parties and the car had been undamaged.

Jurisdiction to retain the case in the Children’s Court had been refused earlier. An order was made that the case was to be heard in the Circuit Court which can impose lengthier sentences.

The boy’s solicitor had said earlier his offending had “dropped dramatically” since February. “He comes from a situation where he had been coming to court two or three times a week at some stages,” she had also said.

After making an order sending the boy forward for trial Judge Denis McLoughlin also acceded to a recommendation in a welfare report to adjourn the teen’s remaining Children’s Court cases until a date in March to allow the Probation Service further time to work with him.

Sentencing had already been set down in a separate case where the boy has admitted he had a supply of cannabis, worth €100, at Killane Road, in Dublin, on April 17 last.

On his next court appearance the boy will face sentencing for 33 charges and nine summons for a range off offences committed since late 2005.