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Chapter 1: What are the details of the Riad Bouchaker trial?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
And Newstalk's courts correspondent, Frank Graney, joins us from the Central Criminal Court this morning as the trial of Riyadh Bouchakar continues today. And Frank, the first witness called yesterday was one of the alleged victims, Leanne Flynn. And at the time, Leanne was working as a childcare assistant.
It's the state's case that Mr Bouchakar stabbed her while she was trying to protect a group of schoolchildren. Take us through what she had to say about the alleged attack.
Well, she said it happened as she was preparing to move the children to the creche where she was working at the time. She had worked there for the best part of a decade. Part of her daily duties, she said, was to collect the after-school children at lunchtime. She would do that with another care worker.
And on the day in question, the 23rd of November 2023, she said she arrived at the collection point on Parnell Square East, maybe a few minutes later than usual. She said the kids were lined up against a railing. They had just started pairing them up before they left.
When her attention was drawn to a man dressed in dark clothing who had been waiting at a nearby bus stop, we now know that the man she was referring to is the accused man, Riyad Boushaker. She said that he had a bag, seemed to be looking for something in that bag. And as she was zipping up one of the boys' coats...
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Chapter 2: Who was the first witness in the trial and what did they testify?
Again, just before they set off, she said that this man started moving towards one of the girls in what she described as a crouched position and just started ferociously stabbing her with a knife. This is one of three children that Mr. Boushaker is accused of trying to murder. Ms. Flynn said she shouted at him. She asked him what he was doing. She told him to leave the children alone.
She said she then ran at him, grabbed him from behind by his jacket. She said she managed to pull him back away from the children. And at that point, she said he turned around and she said she could see him clearly when he did so. And she described him as having sallow skin. She said he was fat with very big eyes and darkish hair.
And she said he looked kind of confused when he looked at her as if he wasn't expecting an adult or someone bigger to approach him. She said they ended up in a tussle. And that's when she believes that she was stabbed. Riaad Boushaker, you mentioned the fact that she is one of the alleged victims. That is true.
Riaad Boushaker is accused of intentionally or recklessly causing her serious harm, a charge which he has pleaded not guilty to.
And what did Leanne Flynn say about her own injury, Frank?
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Chapter 3: What happened during the alleged attack on Leanne Flynn?
Like at what point did she realise she had been stabbed and how badly injured was she?
She said at some point during that tussle, she felt something wet, but didn't realise that she had been stabbed straight away because her main focus, she said, was on the kids and making sure that they were all OK. She claimed that he tried to get the children again. So she went back over, grabbed him for a second time. And she said she remember just screaming for help. Somebody help me.
He has a knife. And that's when she said others intervened. And when she eventually moved away, she walked a short distance away, ended up on some steps outside a nearby hotel. And at that point, she started getting lightheaded. She said that she was finding it hard to breathe. And it was then that she realized that she had, in fact, been stabbed.
A woman came out from that hotel to see if she needed anything. So she asked her to take the children inside, which that lady did. Paramedics arrived a few minutes later. And before they did, Leanne Flynn said that she just remembered looking to her left and seeing two kids next to her crying with blood on their hands. And in terms of how badly injured she was, she was asked about that.
She said she spent a month in hospital. She had multiple injuries. Her lung had collapsed. Her diaphragm had been severed, which collapsed the other lung, she said. Her spleen was removed, part of her stomach also injured. She said that she was put into an induced coma. She underwent two emergency surgeries. And since then, she said she hasn't been able to go back to work.
She told the jury she was of the view that Riyadh Bushakar was hell-bent on getting to the children. Did she elaborate, Frank, on what she meant by that?
Yeah, that was something that she was asked about and something that she said during her cross-examination. She was questioned about what exactly she saw and when, and part of that cross-examination related to who Mr Boushekar appeared to be targeting that afternoon. In her Garda statement, and this would have been made at the time, she said she didn't believe he intended to harm her personally.
In her view, the children were his focus. And she said he appeared, as you say, hell-bent on getting back to them after she pulled him away.
She accepted that once he broke free of her, there was a period of maybe half a minute or so she wasn't entirely sure about the precise duration before he was restrained by those other members of the public, during which time he stood at the knife and remained capable of causing harm.
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Chapter 4: How did Leanne Flynn react during the attack?
He said he loves kids. His attention was actually drawn to a group of eight or nine schoolchildren enjoying themselves on the street, having fun, as he described it. He described the scene as quite idyllic. before spotting a suspicious stocky man, as he described him, in his 50s with glasses and a moustache near those children.
He said he then saw the man move in front of them and a care worker repeatedly pulling out kids from the line while holding a knife. And according to this witness, the attacker appeared to move up and down the line as though he wanted to get every kid, while the care worker tried desperately to pull children back and to shield them.
He described repeated downward stabbing motions aimed at the children's upper bodies, and recalled screams from both the children and the care worker. Like the other witnesses, he was also cross-examined yesterday.
The defence questioned him about his failure in his Garda statement to mention the childcare worker's struggle with the attacker, despite being only a yard away when all that was unfolding. He accepted that some details only came back to him in the days afterwards and he agreed.
that traumatic events can affect memory, but he remained adamant that the accused appeared to target multiple children, repeatedly moving along that line with a large knife, as they say, striking toward their upper bodies over a period that he estimated lasted somewhere between 20 and 30 seconds. The final witness then Clare called yesterday was a woman called Erica Hernan,
who told the jury that she witnessed part of the alleged attack from the passenger seat of her car as they waited at traffic lights at around half past one that day. She said she noticed a group of young children lined up against railings outside alongside a woman she presumed was minding them and a man standing nearby.
She said that out of nowhere she saw what appeared to be a large kitchen knife with a black handle and according to her, the man suddenly began swinging that knife The woman immediately went into fight mode, she said, to protect the children. She described a struggle in which the woman tried to stop the man and get the children to safety.
She said she saw this man lift a little girl, carrying her with the knife pointed towards the child's throat while the woman fought to intervene. She said she rolled down the car window. She was shouting, he has a knife. Her husband stopped the car at that point, called 112. She too was cross-examined.
The defence established there was no doubt that the man that she was referring to with the knife was the accused man, Riyad Bouchaker. And she reiterated that the childcare worker appeared to instinctively protect the children. She described her response, as I say, as going into fight mode.
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