Teenage boy sentenced for violent disorder at Cork party

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

A teenage boy was sentenced at the Central Criminal Court to two years’ detention and two years under Probation Service supervision in the community for violent disorder outside a Cork house party where Cameron Blair was murdered. The proceedings were reported on 23 July 2021.

The boy, who cannot be named because he is a minor, pleaded guilty to violent disorder involving two other people at Bandon Road on 16 January 2020. He had pleaded not guilty to a separate charge of producing a knife in a manner likely to intimidate another person.

His trial on the knife-production charge began on 28 May. The Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to continue with it on 16 June and entered a nolle prosequi at the sentencing proceedings. The DPP said it was not proceeding with the count in circumstances where the boy accepted he had possessed a butter knife during the events that evening.

During the trial, the defence contended that two other boys had knives but the defendant did not. The State’s case was that all three boys had knives. Justice David Keane said the boy had deliberately armed himself with a butter knife and threatened others, and that his punching of a girl was unprovoked.

Justice Keane reduced a six-year headline sentence to four years, with half in detention and half under supervision. He adjourned finalisation until the following week so enquiries could be made about a place at Oberstown Children Detention Campus. The matter was listed for mention the following Friday at the Central Criminal Court in Waterford.