Near-miss Oxegen driver boy back on bail
A 15-year-old boy, who nearly mowed down revellers at last year's Oxegen music festival and was later caught at the event fighting while armed with a knife , has been readmitted to bail at the Dublin Children's Court.
Last week, the court revoked his bail after hearing that he had continued taking drugs he got from older people in his locality and that he had not been attending appointments with agencies helping him with his drug related problems.
However today Judge Elizabeth MacGrath granted bail subject to conditions.
He was ordered to reside with a relative outside of Dublin but allowed to return to the city to attend court and appointments directed by the Probation and Welfare Service including drug misuse counselling.
He was also ordered to obey a curfew and was remanded to appear again on September 13 next.
The teen, who was accompanied to his case by his mother, was warned he risked custody again if he broke the terms of his bail which also included a ban on him using any motor vehicle.
The west Dublin boy has pleaded guilty to a spate of charges, for driving stolen vehicles, possessing a knife, shoplifting and public order offences, which occurred over a one year period starting last year, at the music festival.
On July 11, 2009 numerous pedestrians on a road near the event at Punchestown Racecourse, in Nass, Co. Kildare “had to jump into a ditch” to avoid being run over by a car he was driving
Later that evening, the security guards there restrained the teenager after “he had been in a fight with other males and produced a knife, a Swiss army four-inch blade.”
Garda Gearoid O'Brien had said that on November 12 last year, the teenager led gardai on a high speed pursuit, in west Dublin. The car, which had been taken during the course of a burglary, was driven by the boy “at excessive speeds in Tallaght, until it “skidded and crashed into a fence.”
On September 21 last year the boy was caught in west Dublin driving a stolen moped.
On January 23 last, he was arrested under the Public Order Act.
On date last February the boy was again arrested under the Public Order Act when garda arrived to deal with an “incident which was getting out of hand.”
In April he was arrested and charged for breach of the peace and being intoxicated in public.
On July 17 last, he stole €50 worth of goods from a clothes shop on Dublin's Henry Street.
Counsel defending had said that there were “issues over the absence of a father figure in his life.”
