Gardai hope for interview with girl whose face was slashed with bottle

Gardai are hoping to speak today to the 12-year-old German girl whose face was slashed with a broken bottle on the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire on Friday night.

Det Insp Eamon O'Reilly said his team was waiting for her parents to make contact before they speak to the girl.

She was with four other foreign students when they were surrounded by seven teenagers at about 9.45 p.m. on Friday. The teenagers attempted to take her rucksack and when she resisted, one of the teenagers - a girl aged between 14 and 15 - attacked her with a broken bottle.

She was taken to St Michael's Hospital in Dun Laoghaire where she received two stitches to her lower jaw. She was discharged later that night.

It was the first of two incidents involving the same group of seven teenagers. Following the first attack, the group made their way along Queen's Road towards Marine Road, where they assaulted and robbed three foreign students. They took a handbag and credit card. Det Insp O'Reilly said a number of witnesses had come forward but by last night there was no definite line of inquiry.

Descriptions of three of the teenagers have been issued. Two were girls, both aged 14 to 15. One is described as short with a heavy build and has blonde shoulder-length hair in a pony tail. She wears a number of rings on her fingers.

The other girl is described as having dark, shoulder-length hair and was wearing a white top. A male member of the group, also aged between 14 and 15 years, is said to have worn a wine-and-black top with a white shirt.

Gardai are appealing to anyone with information to contact Dun Laoghaire gardai at (01) 666 5000 or the confidential line on 1800 666 111.

Det Insp O'Reilly stressed that these incidents were "out of the ordinary".

"There are thousands of foreign students out here and this is certainly the first time there's been an attack like this," he said.

Asked whether he thought the attacks were racist, he said he thought foreign students might have been targeted because they would not be as "wise" about possible local dangers, rather than that the attacks were specifically racially motivated. "This seems to have started as a straightforward handbag snatch that got out of hand," he said.

The attack comes eight months after an announcement by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, of a Government-backed anti-racism campaign.

Announced in January, the campaign was to be allocated £1 million to produce advertising and school programmes aimed at promoting tolerance. Mr O'Donoghue said at the time that he was concerned at the increasing number of attacks on foreign nationals.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party spokeswoman on education, Ms Rois in Shortall, said the crime pointed up the "failure" of the Minister for Justice "to put new procedures for young offenders in place".

"Young people `out of control' is the biggest single issue in my constituency," she said. Ms Shortall is a TD for Dublin North West.

Describing the attack on the German girl as "an appalling and sickening assault", she said it indicated "the increasingly violent and aggressive attitude of groups of young people in our towns and cities towards all people". She accused Mr O'Donoghue of "failing the people of Dublin".

"Despite his claims that he has increased the number of gardai on the beat, the number of gardai working in the Dublin metropolitan area has actually gone down," she said.

There were 3,842 gardai stationed in the DMA in 1998, compared with 3,847 in 1997.

This latest attack on a foreign national came just three days after a man, whose father had been stabbed in a racist attack in Dublin in June, left Ireland after another racist incident. Mr Christian Richardson (24), originally from Bristol, gave in his notice and left the State last Tuesday after he had been challenged by a group of teenagers on the North Strand.

His father, Mr David Richardson, had been critically injured in a stabbing incident during a visit to Dublin with his wife and daughter two months ago. A man has been charged in connection with the attack.

Last summer, an Italian student, Mr Guido Nasi (17), was assaulted in Fairview Park in north Dublin. He suffered a fractured skull after a man smashed a beer bottle over his head. He spent several weeks in a critical condition in Beaumont Hospital before being allowed back to Italy where he has not made a full recovery.

Also last year, a 42-year-old Belgian man died following an assault at a hostel in Ennis, Co Clare, while a 15-year-old Spanish student was hospitalised in May last year following an attack in Waterford.

In 1998, the last year for which figures are available, there were 3,429 crimes reported in which foreign nationals were the injured parties. Some 89 per cent were in Dublin. The vast majority were larcenies.