'Is she dead?' Mother breaks down in tears on opening day of Riad Bouchaker trial

Man has pleaded not guilty to all charges on day one of trial that is expected to last up to five weeks

Items left on Parnell Square in November 2023. A man has appeared in court and denied attempting to murder three children and assaulting others who tried to intervene. File picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

The mother of a then five-year-old girl broke down in tears on Wednesday as she told a Central Criminal Court trial about the moment her child's creche owner phoned her to say her daughter had been stabbed in the chest on a Dublin street.

The mother, who cannot be named to protect her child's identity, later asked surgeons if her child was dead after they revealed she had suffered major blood loss from a stab wound to the heart. 

She told the trial of Riad Bouchaker, aged 52, who denies attempting to murder her child and two others, that her daughter is now in a wheelchair and communicates only by blinking.

Mr Bouchaker, of no fixed address, is on trial at the Central Criminal Court charged with the attempted murder of two girls and one boy, and assault causing serious harm to a care worker, at Parnell Square East in Dublin city centre on November 23, 2023.

He is further charged with assaulting three other people and with producing a knife in a manner likely to intimidate.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and his trial before a jury of nine men and three women is expected to last up to five weeks.

The mother of the first alleged victim told Karl Finnegan, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, that she was at work in Temple Bar when she received a call from the owner of her child's creche at exactly 1.45pm. The creche owner was crying and told her to come quickly as her daughter had been stabbed.

She ran to Parnell Square and, from the Spire on O'Connell St, she said she could see ambulances, fire trucks, and squad cars inside a garda cordon. She said: "I stopped breathing for a second but then I kept running until I got there."

She said she saw Mr Bouchaker being put into an ambulance and a crowd of emergency personnel surrounding her daughter. She said: "I could see her pink backpack and her pink shoes and I stopped and I let them work because I couldn't do anything for her at that moment."

After about 10 minutes, she saw them put her daughter in the back of an ambulance to take her to Temple Street Children's Hospital. 

The witness called her husband and told him to go to Temple Street and called her mother to ask her to pray. She met her husband at the hospital and surgeons told them they were trying to control the blood loss. 

She said: "The first question I asked the surgeon was, 'Is she dead'?"

She said doctors carried out emergency surgery to stop the bleeding from the right ventricle of her heart and told her the girl had suffered a lack of oxygen to the brain for about 40 minutes, which caused severe brain damage. She was in a critical condition and remained in the intensive care unit for three weeks.

She said her daughter's motor skills have been severely impacted and she is fed by a tube to her stomach while she relearns how to swallow. She is non-verbal and can answer only yes or no by blinking. She requires medication to help her sleep and if she gets excited, she has to be sedated.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Finnegan opened the trial by telling the jury that the evidence will prove that Mr Bouchaker carried a knife to Parnell Square in Dublin and stabbed children, targeting their upper bodies.

Counsel said that to return a verdict of guilty of attempted murder, the jury must be satisfied that the accused man intended to kill when he attacked the children. 

While such an intention is "rarely proved by a person announcing it", Mr Finnegan said the jury could infer his intention from the weapon he used, where he directed the blows, how often the blows were delivered, and from the surrounding circumstances.

He said the prosecution would ask the jury to consider the use of a knife, the selection of children, the targeting of their upper bodies, including the neck and chest areas, the repeated stabbing movements, and the fact that members of the public had to intervene.

Mr Finnegan said the jury would also hear from Mr Bouchaker's garda interviews that prior to the attacks, he said he was upset that a social welfare application had been refused. The accused said he was not in his right state of mind and told detectives he knew he did something but didn't know what and that he did not intend to harm or kill the children.

Mr Bouchaker repeatedly said he was "sick, not in his right state of mind and he did not mean to kill anyone", Mr Finnegan said.

Mr Finnegan told the jury that the case has attracted considerable media attention and it is likely that they will have seen and heard public commentary and television descriptions of what may have happened. He told the jury to put that "entirely out of your minds" and to decide the case solely on the evidence they see and hear in court.

He told them not to rely on media reports, social media, or public opinion or to be swayed by emotion, sympathy or outrage.

Describing the events, Mr Finnegan said on the afternoon of November 23, 2023, a group of children had gathered on Parnell Square to be brought to a creche where they would be picked up by their parents. He said Mr Bouchaker approached the children, produced a knife, and began stabbing or attempting to stab them.

One of the children's carers noticed Mr Bouchaker and saw the knife, Mr Finnegan said. She will say that she grabbed Mr Bouchaker from behind and shouted at him to "get away" before realising she had also been stabbed.

Members of the public then intervened and removed the knife, Mr Finnegan said. When gardaí arrived, they found Mr Bouchaker lying on the ground and discovered the knife a short distance away.

The trial, presided over by Mr Justice Tony Hunt, continues before the jury of nine men and three women.