A 15-YEAR-OLD boy nearly mowed down revellers at last year’s Oxegen music festival and was later caught at the event fighting while armed with a knife, the Dublin Children’s Court has heard.
The boy has been granted bail but ordered to attend drug and alcohol addiction counselling and warned he must not use any motor vehicle, or he risks custody. “Not even a ride-on lawn mower,” Judge Elizabeth MacGrath told the teenager.
The west Dublin boy pleaded guilty to charges including driving stolen vehicles, possessing a knife, shoplifting and public order offences, which occurred over a one-year period starting in July last year, at the festival.
Judge MacGrath was told that on July 11th, 2009, there had been numerous pedestrians on a road near the event at Punchestown Racecourse.
The teenager drove dangerously along the same road and “pedestrians had to jump into a ditch” to avoid being hit.
Later that evening, the security guards there restrained the teenager after “he had been in a fight with other males and produced a knife, a Swiss army four-inch blade”.
Garda Gearóid O’Brien said that on November 12th last year, the teenager led gardaí on a high-speed pursuit in west Dublin. The car had been taken during the course of a burglary. On September 21st last year the boy was caught in west Dublin driving a stolen moped.
On January 23rd last, he was arrested under the Public Order Act when he reacted violently to gardaí who had responded to reports of fighting in a housing estate in Rathfarnham, Dublin.
Judge MacGrath heard that at 6.30am on a date last February the boy was again arrested under the Public Order Act when gardaí arrived to deal with an “incident which was getting out of hand”. In April he was arrested and charged for breach of the peace and being intoxicated in public.
On July 17th last, he stole €50 worth of goods from a clothes shop on Dublin’s Henry Street.
Counsel defending said his client, who had no prior criminal convictions, had been on remand for the past four weeks, and a probation report had been furnished.
It was submitted by the defence barrister that there were “issues over the absence of a father figure in his life”.
As conditions of his bail, the teenager was ordered to obey a 7pm to 8am curfew at his home, sign on daily at his local Garda station, “not to drive any mechanically propelled vehicle, scooters, cars, not even a ride-on lawn mower”. He was remanded to appear later this month.