Schoolgirl in custody for part in garda-car ramming

A troubled 16-year-old schoolgirl, who was a passenger in a stolen car which twice rammed gardaí, has been put in custody for probation violation.

In October last year, the girl was released on supervisory probation for one-year at the Dublin Children’s Court. She was ordered to be of good behaviour, comply with the directions of the Probation Services and warned that if she broke these conditions the case would be brought back to court.

Judge Clare Leonard heard that case has been re-entered because the girl had breached her probation bond, had repeatedly gone missing and had tested positive for illegal drug-use, including cocaine and heroin, 12 times.

Her probation officer informed Judge Leonard that “from June 16th to June 25th she went missing without any contact as to where she was.” She also said the girl had missed her probation appointments.

Pleading for bail, defence counsel Ms Kate Dawson said there was a “long history to this case. There have been a number of concerns from different agencies, the HSE has been involved. She had been in a foster care placement, that went well, as a result of that she was put on the probation bond. She knows she messed up.”

Judge Leonard refused bail and remanded the girl, who was accompanied to court by her mother, in custody for two weeks.

“On the next date you can apply for bail if you can convince your probation officer, but I suspect that will take some doing because you have not been behaving appropriately,” she said to the girl who made no reply.

Last year she had been remanded in custody for a spell pending efforts by the HSE to find her the foster family placement.

The girl, whom the court had heard suffered from depression, had admitted travelling as a passenger in a stolen car, on October 1 2006, at Pine Forest Road, Glencullen in south Co. Dublin, skipping court and a petty theft shoplifting offence.

“She was in the back of a stolen car. This car rammed a patrol car on two occasions and she threw bottles at it as it followed,” the court heard earlier.

Last year the court was told the girl’s mother had sought social services’ assistance for her daughter for four years and the HSE had twice refused to take her into care.

The teenager had gone missing 25 times in 2007 with the mother telling the court last year: “She is taking drugs, she’s only 15. I’ve no control over her, when I try to keep her in she climbs out the windows, she’s palling around with men that are older than her.”