Mother pleads with judge to 'lock up' out of control teen
The mother of an “out of control” 17-year-old burglar, who ransacked operating theatres in the Mater Hospital in Dublin and stole vital medical equipment and potentially lethal drugs, has pleaded with a judge to “lock up” her son.
The teen had pleaded guilty at the Dublin Children’s Court to trespassing, burglary, criminal damage and Public Order Act charges committed over the last two years. Earlier this month he had been remanded on bail pending sentence and for a probation report to be obtained.
However, when his case was called today, Judge Ann Ryan heard that the teen had been present but had left the courthouse.
His parents were present and his mother said: “He didn’t come home last night he’s out of his face on tablets. Lock him up.”
Judge Ryan issued a bench warrant to have the teenager arrested and brought before the court.
Previously the teenager had been described by another judge as “out of control.”
The out-of-school and unemployed teen’s own mother had agreed with the comment and said “He is out of control I just can’t cope with him.”
Garda Alan Fitzgerald of Mountjoy station said that on November 26 last “security in the hospital showed me offices that had been ransacked. I was then taken to the operation area. Four operating theatres had been ransacked with cabinets opened and medicines thrown over the floor.”
“Later the teenager was found asleep in the grounds of the hospital. He had alcohol taken and was in possession of a large number of surgical instruments and medicines worth €2,500.”
He said that if some the medicines the teen had taken, which included anaesthetics, were administered incorrectly “they could be lethal.”
On his arrest, the teenager had no memory of what he had done due to being heavily intoxicated.
The court had also heard he attempted to burgle one of his grandmother’s neighbours and in another incident vandalised three cars while heavily drunk and committing a breach of the peace.
The boy had earlier attended a special education school and had previously attended for counselling at the hospital which he ransacked.
His mother had also said her son “comes and goes as he wants.”
