Girl, 17, avoids jail for garda station fire

A 17-year-old girl, who developed a drink problem, started a fire in a Garda station and attacked three female officers, after she was thrown on the streets by her mentally ill mother, has been spared a custodial sentence.

At the Dublin Children’s Court yesterday (MON) the teenage girl was placed on probation for one year. However, Judge Aeneus McCarthy warned her: “You are at last chance saloon. You will serve a sentence if you commit any further crimes.”

The girl was ordered to be of good behaviour for one year and to accept the guidance of the Probation Service to address her offending.

Her counsel Mr Michael Hourigan said the girl, who had no recorded previous convictions, was remorseful and would to abide by the terms of the probation bond.

During one incident she approached a man on Dublin’s Middle Abbey Street, on November 13 last, brandishing a broken snooker cue but was disarmed by another member of the public. Afterwards she told Gardai: “I only did it for a laugh, I thought it was funny.”

The girl, who quit school three years ago, had pleaded guilty to 20 charges for a range of crimes committed over six months including assault, criminal damage, theft, possessing a weapon and Public Order Act offences for breach of the peace and being drunk and disorderly.

She had been arrested in south Dublin, on September 7 last, for a drink and possibly drug-fuelled incident where she started screaming and yelling abuse at gardaí.

After her arrest she lashed out and attacked three female gardai with punches and bites at Dun Laoghaire station. A Garda had her skin broken and was left with a bite mark on her arm.

In another disturbance she and a group of teens disrupted a south-side Luas tram bringing it to temporary halt by abusive and threatening behaviour to other passengers.

In an incident in February she and other youths had gone to Pearse Street Garda station to find out if any emergency hostels had a bed for her. While there she set fire to a notice board in the station’s public office and caused €80 worth of damages.

In other offences, the girl had been caught stealing items of clothing and in one instance a pre-packed meal, worth €4.

In pleas for leniency the court had heard that the girl had a troubled past.

The girl, who was accompanied to court by her social worker, had been put into State care after “her mother, who suffers from depression and has other mental issues, threw her out of her home.”

She became homeless in the middle of last year with the only accommodation open to her being emergency hostel accommodation for people on the streets.

There she developed an alcohol problem and had fallen in with a “bad crowd” from which she has now disassociated herself.

The girl had left school at the age of 14 but in recent months had been placed into a care home and had commenced a training course.