Teens bailed over baseball bat attack
Six teenage boys arrested over an alleged baseball attack on a man have been remanded on bail at the Dublin Children’s Court.
The defendants, whose ages range from 14 to 18, are accused of assault causing harm to a now 20-year-old man, in Balbriggan, in north Co. Dublin, on a date in August last year. They are also charged with using a baseball bat as weapon in connection with alleged incident.
Garda Laura King told Judge Bryan Smyth that the complainant had to be hospitalised and received stitching to the back of his head.
She said that he has to attend physiotherapy as a result of his injuries, and added that the incident had left him “very shook.”
The defence counsel made submissions pleading for the case not to be sent forward to the Circuit Court, which has wider sentencing powers.
The defence asked the judge to note the defendants’ ages, and that most had never been before the courts previously. Counsel said most of the five teens were in school and submitted that the younger defendants aged 14 and 15, “are not street smart".
The defence also asked the judge to take into consideration that there was a history to the incident and that the complainant was several years older than the teens.
However, Judge Smyth said that “anyone would be vulnerable if there were five or six.”
He accepted jurisdiction to retain the case of the 14-year-old in the Children’s Court. However, he ordered that the co-defendants should be sent forward for trial to the Circuit Court.
All six, who were accompanied to court by parents, were remanded on bail to appear again next month, when five of them are to be served with books of evidence.
