Heroic interventions to save children during Parnell Square stabbing

Delivery driver Caio Benicio intervened during the attack. Picture: Marc O'Sullivan

Several members of the public made dramatic interventions in attempts to save the lives of a group of children attacked by Riad Bouchaker.

They include a creche worker who went to protect the children, a Brazilian delivery driver who used his helmet to hit Bouchaker, and a French teenager who was in Ireland for just a month before the stabbing.

Bouchaker, aged 52 and of no fixed address, was convicted of the attempted murder of three children – two girls aged five and six, and a five-year-old boy – and assault causing serious harm to creche worker Leanne Flynn on Parnell Square East in Dublin City on November 23 2023.

During the trial, Ms Flynn gave evidence that she “let out a shout” and asked what Bouchaker was doing after seeing him “ferociously jabbing” at the children.

The scene in Dublin city centre after the incident (PA)

She described how she grabbed the back of his jacket as he “was trying to still continuously jab” and “pulled him back from the children”.

She said she “swung him” and that there was a “tussle”, adding “he stabbed me in that tussle”.

Ms Flynn described how she “didn’t actually see the knife”, but presumed it was the same one used on the children – and said she “felt something wet” but that it had not registered with her that she was hurt.

She said she went back to grab at Bouchaker a second time, as although some of the children had moved, others were “frozen with panic”.

At that point, she said “other adults intervened” and she started “grabbing the children and telling them to run”.

After the attack, Ms Flynn said she was taken to the nearby Mater hospital, placed into an induced coma and underwent two emergency surgeries.

A surgeon gave evidence during the trial that Ms Flynn’s stomach had gone into the chest area as her diaphragm was severed, and there was a “significant” injury to her spleen which meant it had to be removed as a “lifesaving measure”.

Ms Flynn’s lung had also collapsed and part of her stomach was also removed.

She said she spent a month in hospital and has not been able to return to work since.

A then 17-year-old French boy, who had arrived in Dublin one month earlier to work in a restaurant, told the jury that he came upon a man assaulting a woman on Parnell Square East.

The witness, now 20, was described by Mr Justice Tony Hunt as “brave” and “modest” after he explained how he intervened to “grab the knife off the attacker”.

“I came close enough to the attacker to disarm the man, to grab the knife from his hand,” he told the jury.

He said he had to use force to take the knife, and that he threw it on the ground when he had it.

The court heard he suffered a scratch to his finger and cheek but they healed within a number of days.

The witness said that at the moment he intervened, someone else came and hit the man in the head with a motorcycle helmet.

Brazilian delivery driver Caio Benicio had been returning to O’Connell Street area after completing his day’s first order when he witnessed the attack.

When he got closer, he told the court he saw the man start to stab a child.

Mr Benicio said he stopped his motorbike and tried to run towards them but was slow because he had had knee surgery two months earlier.

He said he took off his helmet and used it to hit the man in the head.

Warren Donohoe told the court that he had run towards the incident after initially believing it to be an argument between a man and a woman.

He later saw the children and said he hit Bouchaker, with a “dig in the jaw” as he “had to be put down” because of “what he was doing”.

Under cross-examination, he agreed that he had kicked Bouchaker when he was on the ground.

Mr Donohoe had earlier said he wanted to “make sure he didn’t get back up”.

Siobhan Kearney, who had been at the nearby inquests for the 1981 Stardust nightclub tragedy, in which her 18-year-old brother Liam died, told the court how she wanted to try to get Bouchaker to the ground.

However, she told the jury that after he was downed, she locked hands with another person and said “we’re not f****** savages here” as people were continuing to try to “boot in” at him.

Ms Kearney added: “As far as I could see the man was knocked out behind me. He wasn’t going to do any more damage.”

The court also heard from cyclist Oisin Murphy, who said he had dismounted and hit Bouchaker on the head with his bike lock.

Eder Nascimento Dos Santos told the court he had also been cycling past the incident and jumped off his bike.

Mr Dos Santos said he crossed the road and saw the knife on the floor, adding that he took it “away to try to prevent more people from getting hurt”.