Teenager banned from seeing father

A 16-year-old boy who took part in a violent gang mugging of a teenager, has turned his back on a care plan set up for him, the Children’s Court has been told.

The boy was also banned today from having contact with his father, who allegedly supplied him with drugs.

His case had been adjourned until today to monitor his behaviour in a care home where he had been placed in July last. However, Judge Bryan Smyth heard that the placement had broken down and boy is “now residing with a friend” in Dublin.

His social worker said that the boy had been making good progress in his care placement but after being allowed home to Dublin to visit his mother for a weekend he refused to come back. Social services are now seeking to secure other accommodation for the boy.

Concerns were raised that he has been in contact with his father who is the subject of a barring order. The court heard that in the past the father had given his son drugs.

Judge Smyth adjourned the sentencing and remanded the teenager on bail until next week. This was to allow the case to go before Judge Aingeal Ni Chonduin who originally heard the evidence, earlier this year.

He imposed bail conditions compelling the teenager to obey a curfew, not to consume intoxicants and to stay from his father.

The teenager who is in care had pleaded guilty to robbery and assault causing harm at Bushy Park, in Dublin, on April 12 last year.

In July last, he had been given a seven-month sentence by a court in Limerick for the abduction last December of a member of staff, from a Limerick youth care unit, who was ordered at knife-point to drive him to Dublin.

Previously he had been held in custody on remand pending sentence for the kidnapping as efforts were made by the HSE to set up a new care placement for the teenager. When sentenced for the abduction, the term was back-dated to when he was first held in custody. As a result he was released to take up the placement in the care home.

In relation to the mugging in Dublin, garda Emer O’Conner had told the Children’s Court that the victim, a boy in his early teens, suffered bruising to his head and back.

He was “approached by a group of youths and knocked to the ground. His ipod was taken.”

He was aged 14 at the time. The court heard that he was younger he had been referred to the HSE which led to him being put into a secure care unit. His parents separated when he was aged eight years; his father had limited contact with him and any visits he has with the teenager are supervised.

His family had “serious difficulties” and he came from a “volatile situation”. Solicitor Ms Catherine Ghent representing the boy’s mother had said the woman had made efforts for several years to get State authorities to ensure her son was “being looked after in the most appropriate way possible”.