Teen detained over attack on security guards
A 14-year-old boy, who stole €300 from a shop and then bit two security guards who tried to stop him, has been detained for one year by Judge Bryan Smyth at the Dublin Children’s Court.
The out of school teenager, who is from north Dublin, pleaded guilty to the theft of €300 from the Aldi Superstore, in Ballymun, last February, when he was aged 13. He was also charged with attacking two of the shop’s security guards on the same date which he also admitted.
He had no friends his own age and through association with older trouble makers started to be involved in crime, the court was told.
He had been on remanded in the National Remand and Assessment Centre, in Finglas, Dublin, since August for psychological and educational assessments to be carried out.
Garda Keith Halley of Santry Station had told the court that the boy stole the money from the shop and as “he was approached by the security men he bit them".
Garda Halley had earlier said the boy was always with a gang of older, troublesome youths and the shop’s staff became afraid of him.
“They feared for their safety and had become increasingly worried because they constantly see him hanging around the premises,” he said at an earlier hearing.
There were a number of concerns for the boy’s welfare mainly in connection with him being out of the education system.
He remained silent during his sentence hearing as defence solicitor Catherine Ghent told Judge Bryan Smyth that the boy had been getting on well in the detention centre and aware he was facing a custodial sentence. Assessments in the centre also showed that the boy, who has not been in school for a year and a half, was extremely bright.
“He is someone who has got into a lot of difficulties over the last number of years. There were huge difficulties in his area with peer groups. He had no friends his own age and started hanging around with older boys in Ballymun who have been involved in serious criminal behaviour; some of them have been locked up in the mean time.”
Judge Smyth detained the boy for one year in the detention centre saying he was doing that “since he was doing so well there".
The boy was supported in court by his grandmother, who has brought him up.
