Boy (16) sentenced for two assaults and criminal damage

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

A 16-year-old boy was sentenced to three years’ detention, with the final 18 months suspended on strict conditions, by Judge Melanie Greally at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. The proceedings were reported on 5 December 2016.

He pleaded guilty to two charges of assaulting the same boy, then aged 16, and criminal damage. The offences occurred on 23 January and 28 February 2015. The teenager cannot be named for legal reasons.

The sentence covered an earlier assault as well as the incident in which he threw black paint at the victim on a crowded Luas. The victim told gardaí that the accused and other local youths had attacked him a month before the paint incident. Garda Kieran Kilcoyne agreed with Sarah-Jane O’Callaghan, defending, that her client later admitted hitting the victim three times in the earlier assault.

Garda Kilcoyne said other passengers were covered in paint, including an elderly woman whose €140 coat was destroyed. The tram was immediately taken out of service, and cleaning the carriage cost €884.

Judge Greally described the assaults as “violent and vicious” and said the boy’s behaviour disrupted the Luas service. She accepted that he later made admissions and co-operated with the Garda investigation. Ms O’Callaghan said her client had “renewed insight into his offending behaviour since his detention”.