Teen's parents avoid arrest warrant by showing up for case

The parents of a 14-year-old Dublin girl arrested for shoplifting have avoided a threatened arrest warrant after they turned up to her court case today.

The young girl was brought before the Children’s Court on Monday last following her arrest for theft of €23 worth of groceries from the Tesco supermarket at Crumlin Shopping Centre. However, her parents did not come to her case even though they are obliged by law.

Judge Ann Ryan had given them until today to be present otherwise she intended to issue a bench warrant for them to be arrested and brought to court.

When the case was called this morning, neither the girl nor her parents were present leading to the judge following through on her threat to issue the bench warrant.

However, the teen and her father turned up to court minutes later, leading to the warrant being cancelled, and him getting a stern warning from the judge.

“She is only 14 but this offence allegedly happened when she was 13, she is a very young girl. Any time she appears in court I would expect that you or her mother appears with her, she is your responsibility and that is the way it should be,” she told the father, who apologised and said: “I understand.”

The case was put back until April and the girl was remanded on continuing bail to allow directions from the DPP to be obtained as to whether the prosecution is to proceed in light of her young age at the time of the offence.

Adjourning the case, the judge again addressed the father and told him a parent must also be present on the next date and in the mean time it was important his daughter “is kept out of harms way and does not come to Garda attention”.

On Monday last, the court had heard that a peace commissioner had to be brought in to the Garda station when she was charged. Parents or responsible adults are required by law to go to a Garda station if a child has been arrested.

Garda Stephan Cooper had told Judge Ryan that the girl’s family had been made aware she was being charged. “I spoke to a woman on the phone, she made it clear that she did not care what would happen,” he said.

When the girl came to the courthouse on Monday morning, she was accompanied by a younger sister.

Parents are obliged by law to attend cases at the Children’s Court.

Section 91 of the 2001 Children Act states: “Where the parents or guardian fail or neglect, without reasonable excuse, to attend any proceedings, the Court may adjourn the proceedings and issue a warrant for the arrest of the parents or guardian. Failure by the parents or guardian, without reasonable excuse, to attend any such proceedings shall be treated for all purposes as if it were a contempt in the face of the court.”