THE YOUNG man in the dock in Limerick District Court is 17 years old and is doing everything in his power to be sent to a detention centre.
The judge isn’t bending over backwards to help him keep his freedom – she’s doing gymnastics.
He’s not denying his involvement in an incident of violent disorder in which a man was chased by four adults and the teenager in car and, when he was cornered in a front garden of a house in the city, attacked.
The boy’s role in the incident, which happened on December 21, 2024, was to pick up an iron object – possibly a car steering wheel lock, the court heard – and strike the cornered man with it.
There is no charge of assault as there is no complaint of such from the victim, Judge Catherine Ryan was told.
Gardaà spotted the car as it chased the fleeing man and followed, catching up as the occupants of the car spilled out and the incident unfolded.
Things kicked off, the judge heard, when the boy’s grandmother phoned for help from her family because someone was smashing the windows in her house.
The adults in the house responded and the boy jumped in with them, the court heard.
The young man did not deny that he was seen by Gardaà throwing punches in a separate affray involving three youths fighting each other.
He had been referred to the probation services at a hearing last year. The probation officer reported he had attended and engaged at first. But then he missed appointments and, after several stop-start engagements, said he wanted nothing more to do with the probation process.
He wasn’t disrespectful or abusive – quite the opposite, the court heard.
“He just said it wasn’t for him,” the probation officer said in evidence.
He’s neatly dressed and is paying respectful attention to what’s happening. No grinning or yawning or making verbal protests, which often happens when young men think it’s smart to show bravado when they’ve ended up in front of a judge.
It possibly helps that this is a closed court, where proceedings are held in camera and the youth can’t be identified because of his age.
Outside of those employed in the court, the only other people here are his mother and another female relative supporting her. They both look resigned.
His solicitor says he is working in a family member’s business doing manual and clerical work. She is asking the judge not to send him to Oberstown detention centre. She says the boy’s mother is also asking the judge not to send him into detention. The judge evidently doesn’t want to send him into detention either.
She asks the legal eagles and the prosecuting Garda Sergeant for help.
“Can I suspend a detention period?” she asks.
The answer is not clear. Can his solicitor or his mother extract a promise that he will re-engage with the probation service? What about some time doing community service?
Just when everyone thinks this is a fitting compromise, his solicitor says, having consulted briefly with him, that she is “instructed not to resist his being sent to detention”.
Everyone is flummoxed. The judge says her hands are tied and she is “not impressed with his attitude to what the court is trying to do for him”.
“Later this year, he will turn 18. Then he will be looking down the maw of a possible jail sentence if things continue in this direction.”
He’s never been detained before. Many of his peers from the area of the city where he lives have done time in detention or in jail.
The judge sends him to Oberstown for week to see if that will have any impact. Or give hm enough of a shock to decide this one time locked up will be sufficient for whatever misguided street cred that brings.
– Court Reporting Scheme