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Day five of the trial of Riad Bocuhaker has heard evidence from Dublin dad, Warren Donoghue, who says he gave Bochaker “a dig in the jaw” to “put him down” and “a few kicks” because he “had to be put down” because of “what he was doing”.
A jury of three women and nine men heard that Mr Donoghue and his family were in town to celebrate his daughter’s 11th birthday and were walking past the Rotunda Hospital when he became aware of “shouting and screaming,” which he thought was due to “an argument. He said he saw a man and a woman and “ran over” before he saw that the man had a knife.
He described the man as being “Bald, a bit like me,” before Mr Justice Tony Hunt said, “Don’t worry about it, Mr Donoghue.”
Mr Donogue, who is a father of four, said he “saw the kid on the ground” and Bouchaker with a knife “in his right hand”.
“I hit him”, he said, “I gave him a dig in the jaw”, and “he had to be put down” because of “what he was doing”, he said.
He described giving “a few kicks” to “make sure he didn’t get back up” when the accused was on the ground.
The witness then said that his “daughter went missing” and that he went back to the ILAC centre, where he had been with his family earlier that day. He said he came back to Parnell Square East afterwards.
Counsel for Mr Bouchaker commended Mr Donoghue’s actions, saying, “You went straight into the thick of things” and, “You did absolutely the right thing”, “You boxed him” and “Hit him a few kicks on the ground to make sure that’s where he stayed.”
Counsel surmised that the witness had taken that course of action as he believed that the accused “had every opportunity to kill or seriously injure those children.”
Art teacher, Eileen O’Sullivan, who was visiting Dublin with her partner, Michael Healey, said that the pair had visited an Andy Warhol exhibition at the Hugh Lane Gallery on the morning of the 23rd of November 2023.
She described hearing “screams” before she and Michael became aware of what they thought was “a couple having a fight” between a man and a woman across the road. Ms O’Sullivan said she saw Riad Bocuhaker “throwing off” the woman, care worker Leanne Flynn, and that “he had a knife”.
“He was throwing her off, and he had a knife in his hand, and he went toward the first little child that I saw,” she said, adding, he swivelled him around trying to stab him in the chest.”
She said that Bouvhaker was “hell-bent on getting to as many children as he could” and that he was trying to get the child’s “backpack out of the way.”
She said she saw a group of men trying to stop him, but that “he was very strong and he was fighting back.”
Ms O’Sullivan said she didn’t know how many “stabs” she saw, describing the incident as “something you couldn’t believe was actually happening.”
“I saw the child on the ground”, and “then I saw the assailant on the ground”.
She said, “A man came towards me who had ‘kicked the assailant on the ground, and he was very angry.”
The witness then described seeing another man get off his bike, pick up a knife and run towards her and Michael, holding it
Although she initially thought this man may have been a “partner” with “the assailant”, she realised that he was in fact trying to remove the knife from the scene as he threw it into a grassy area.
When counsel for Mr Bouchaker asked if Bouchaker was “trying to bring the knife down on a child’s chest,” she replied that she “couldn’t see if it penetrated or not.”
Bouchaker denies all charges.
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