Childcare worker recalls Riad Bouchaker ‘ferociously jabbing’ kids as accused ‘hell-bent’ during Parnell Square attack

A CHILDCARE worker has told a court how she was injured while tackling a man who was “ferociously jabbing” at children in her care with a knife in Dublin three years ago.

The Central Criminal Court in Dublin has heard multiple children and an adult were injured in the attack, including a girl who is now in a wheelchair and non-verbal.

Riad Bouchaker, aged 52 and of no fixed address, is charged with attempted murder of two girls and one boy, and assault causing serious harm to care worker Leanne Flynn, in Parnell Square East in Dublin City on November 23 2023.

He is also charged with assaulting three other people and with producing a 36cm kitchen knife. He has pleaded not guilty to all eight charges.

On the fourth day of the trial, Ms Flynn described how she was collecting children on Parnell Square at around 1.30pm.

Under questioning from Karl Finnegan SC, for the prosecution, she described how they were lined up by railings in pairs when “a male dressed in dark clothes grabbed my attention”.

She described the man as being “fat” and having “sallow skin” with “very big eyes” and with “darkish hair”.

She said he was “at his bag… like he was looking for something” when he started to walk “towards the children in a crouched motion, very hurriedly and just started ferociously jabbing”.

Ms Flynn said she “let out a shout and asked him what he was doing”, and then “ran after him and grabbed him from behind”.

She described how she grabbed the back of his jacket as he “was trying to still continuously jab” and “pulled him back from the children”.

She said she “swung him” and that there was a “tussle”, adding “he stabbed me in that tussle”.

Ms Flynn described how she “didn’t actually see the knife”, but presumed it was the same one used on the children – and said “I felt something wet but it didn’t register with me” that she was hurt.

She said the man “went to try and go back to the children again” and “I went back over and grabbed him for a second time”.

Some of the children had moved but some were “frozen with panic”, she said.

At that point, she said “other adults intervened” and she started “grabbing the children and telling them to run”.

She described seeing one girl with “so much blood on her face and her neck” she could not tell where she had been stabbed.

She sat at the steps of a nearby hotel with some of the children where she was helped by an elderly man and a hotel worker.

She said she asked the worker to take the children into the hotel as “they don’t need to see this”.

At that point, she was “really lightheaded” and was finding it “hard to breathe”.

Ms Flynn said she was taken to the nearby Mater hospital, placed into an induced coma and underwent two emergency surgeries.

She said her lung had collapsed, her diaphragm was severed which caused her second lung to collapse and her spleen and part of her stomach were removed.

She said she spent a month in hospital and has not been able to return to work since.

Under cross examination, Ms Flynn was asked if, when she grabbed the man, “he had wide eyes” and if it would be “fair” to describe him as “frantic” – to which she replied “yes”.

Asked if, at that moment she thought it appeared “there was something wrong with” the man, she responded “no”.

She said “the children seemed to be his main focus”, he seemed “hellbent” on getting to the children.