Court seeks secure unit for sex assault boy

Sentencing of a 14-year-old boy, who sexually assaulted two women and in another incident held a knife to a pregnant woman’s stomach, has been adjourned pending an effort to have him placed in a secure therapeutic care unit.

The boy, who is residing in a care home, had pleaded guilty earlier at the Children’s Court to two sexual assaults on the same date in January last, in Dublin. He also admitted four other charges, two for production of a knife as a weapon at his care home in November last year, when he was aged 13, and two more for attacking two women who worked in the unit.