It is “absurd” to suggest the man accused of the attempted murder of three children on a Dublin street three years ago did not intend to kill, a prosecuting barrister told the Central Criminal Court.
Riad Bouchaker, 52, of no fixed address, is charged with the attempted murder of two girls and one boy as well as assault causing serious harm to care worker Leanne Flynn, in Parnell Square East in Dublin city centre on November 23 2023.
The jury has been told that alternative verdicts will be available to them in relation to the attempted murder charges.
The defence barrister urged the jury not to view Bouchaker as a “monster” and said “vengeance” should have no place in the courtroom as he urged them to look at the case with “calm and intelligence”.
Bouchaker is also charged with assaulting two young children and a teenager and with producing a 36cm kitchen knife.
He has pleaded not guilty to all eight charges.
The jury heard Bouchaker had brain surgery in 2021 with a portion of his skull removed, leaving a part of his brain vulnerable.
He suffered a further head injury when members of the public intervened on November 23 2023, which required him to receive further hospital treatment.
His defence has said Bouchaker’s cognitive functioning, memory, concentration, communication and decision-making is affected as a result.
On Monday, the jury of nine men and three women were told the prosecution’s case had formally closed and that the defence would not be calling evidence.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt told the jury it was the right of every accused person to decline to give evidence, and the accused “can say ‘I want nothing to do with this process: you prove the case’.”
Giving his closing statement to the jury, prosecuting barrister Karl Finnegan SC said he wanted to be “crystal clear” that he was asking the jury to find Bouchaker guilty of all eight charges on the indictment sheet.
He said if the defence were arguing that Bouchaker did not intend to kill anyone and that he was not in his right mind at the time, he urged them to “absolutely reject that defence” as it was “inconsistent” with CCTV footage, eyewitness accounts, and with the injuries to individuals at the centre of the charges.
He said that “most importantly” they should reject it as it was “inconsistent with common sense” and it was an “absurd” suggestion that he did not intend to kill or cause harm.
Referring to Bouchaker’s statements to gardaí, a month after the stabbing, where Bouchaker indicated he expressed regret or was thankful no one had died, Mr Finnegan said “even if true”, this was “irrelevant” to the intention of his actions at the time.
He said it did “not help one jot” that Bouchaker had said “thank god” no one had died during interviews with gardaí and said this indicated he understood that death was a likely consequence of his actions.
Mr Finnegan said that Bouchaker’s statement to “thank god” that no one died is “an acknowledgement of how close things came to murder” and that he was only “stopped by the courage of others”.
He also said the claim from Bouchaker’s defence that there was a lack of intent was “a lame excuse” contradicted by evidence.
“See this for what it is, ladies and gentlemen,” he said.
The defence barrister representing Bouchaker said whatever was in his client’s mind on the day was a “toxic blend of banal frustration and inexplicable darkness”, but said there were “substantial issues to be decided in the weeds of this case, not withstanding its horror”.
He said Bouchaker’s actions were “senseless in every way”, and did not reach the level of “intent” needed to convict.
He said that if Bouchaker’s intention was “murderous”, and that he intended to kill, “the sickening reality” would be that in the seconds after the care worker was “cast aside”, “he would have killed or he would have caused devastating injuries to other children”.
“Those injuries are not there and that impact is not there,” the defence barrister said.
While he described gardaí’s handling of Bouchaker as “impeccable” and “proper”, he said Bouchaker’s engagement during the garda interviews was “faltering and incoherent”, that he was speaking “gibberish”, and that he “struggles enormously to understand the legal caution”.
He also suggested to the jury that there was a “dearth of evidence” in two of the three attempted murder charges.
He said that there was no evidence presented that a less than 1cm laceration on a five-year-old boy’s neck was caused by Bouchaker, and that the evidence “to sustain the extraordinarily high count” of attempted murder “is not there either” in relation to a head wound to a six-year-old girl.
He urged the jury to not view the accused as “some monster” but as a person presented for trial.
He said he was not asking them for “your sympathy” for Bouchaker, who he said was “inflicted, impaired and somewhat adrift” in this process, as that would be an “emotional” response.
Instead, he asked them if a member of their family who was impaired was sitting where Bouchaker is, “ask what kind of trial would you want” for them, before adding that the jury was to represent “the best parts” of society.
He also said that “vengeance should have no place here” and said the “shrieking” of others calling for it “should find no place in these courts”.
He said there was a danger that a person’s critical faculties could be “simply overwhelmed by the horror” of the events, and that the jury should “resist it in every minute of your work”.
In his charge to the jury, Mr Hunt told the jury that proof beyond a reasonable doubt was a “high, exacting but not impossible standard”.
“Proof beyond reasonable doubt is not a mathematical formula, it’s not like feeding two euro coins into the slot machine and pulling a lever,” he said.
“Human affairs aren’t solved in a mathematical way, that’s why juries are brought in, and you are experts in human affairs.”
Hunt has said that the jury had had “the best exposition” of how difficult it is to be certain of events, referring to eyewitness accounts and CCTV footage during the case, and said for people to have different accounts of the same event was a common occurrence.
Mr Hunt said he would continue his charge to the jury after 10.30am on Tuesday.
