Teens pack the court as trial nears an end

FINN COLCLOUGH, the south Dublin teenager accused of stabbing a youth from Fairview, sat with his head bowed and his eyes downcast throughout the proceedings, sniffing occasionally.

During the trial, he was repeatedly described as having dirty-blond dreadlocks. Now the 18-year-old's hair is cut short. His white cuffs gleamed at the end of his black suit and he worried a tissue in his hands.

His mother Alix sat beside him wearing black and wiping her eyes and nose with her hand. A weary- looking John Colclough took a seat behind his son, to the left of Mr Justice Paul Carney's bench.

The family of the deceased, sitting in a row in the centre of the Central Criminal Court, were also visibly suffering. When Mr Justice Paul Carney reviewed some of the evidence concerning the stabbing of Seán Nolan (18) in the early hours of May 26th, 2007, his mother, Charlotte, got upset.

She pursed her lips, sighed heavily and looked to her husband Michael. They both shook their heads. From time to time, they glanced in the direction of the Colclough family who did not look back.

Behind the Nolan family, the benches were packed and many onlookers stood at the back of the tense courtroom.

Friends of Mr Colclough sat on the right and friends of Mr Nolan on the left. Young faces framed with youthful hairstyles predominated. Gum-chewing teenagers wearing backpacks peered over the balcony upstairs.

On what was the fifth day of the trial yesterday, prosecution counsel Mary Ellen Ring SC said Mr Colclough and his friends were "in a safe place" and were not infants alone in a house with people outside their door and no adults to assist on the night of the incident.

"He had a plan. He takes up the knives and he's shouting and waving them for a purpose," she said. "Seán Nolan had nothing."

Ms Ring continued: "The only person we say who was acting in a way that was aggressive and threatening is the man with the two knives, and Seán Nolan, some would say foolishly, some would say bravely, went up to him."

For the defence, Patrick Gageby SC told the jurors that this case did not look like others they would have read about in newspapers, involving drugs, money, guns or girls.

It smacked of classic juvenile irrationality, a lack of foresight and stupidity that could unfortunately be expected from a minority of young men.

"He never intended any of this to happen."