Man who stabbed three children that triggered riots in Dublin found guilty of attempted murder

A man has been found guilty of attempting to murder three children during a stabbing attack in Dublin in 2023, a crime that horrified Ireland and triggered a riot in the capital.

A jury at the central criminal court on Wednesday also found Riad Bouchaker, 52, guilty of assault causing serious harm to a childcare worker, Leanne Flynn, and of assaulting two other children and a teenager.

Bouchaker used a 12-inch kitchen knife to attack Flynn and the children on 23 November 2023 when they emerged from a creche in Parnell Square in the city centre.

That night rioters chanted anti-immigrant slogans, looted shops and torched buses, a tram and police vehicles in the worst unrest in decades.

Bouchaker is an Algerian national and Irish citizen who had lived in Ireland for two decades. The court heard that on the morning of the attack he learned that he had been refused a social welfare payment. He collected a backpack and the knife from his hostel and waited outside the childcare centre at Parnell Square.

When the children lined up by a railing he attacked. He stabbed a girl, then aged five, in the heart. She now has a brain injury and is non-verbal, uses a wheelchair and is fed through a tube in her stomach. A five-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl required hospital treatment for less severe injuries.

Bouchaker stabbed Flynn while she tried to protect the children, leaving her with two collapsed lungs and injuries to her diaphragm, stomach and spleen. He also assaulted two other children and a teenager who intervened and wrestled the knife away.

Other bystanders intervened, incapacitating Bouchaker and leaving him unconscious and with a head injury that required hospital treatment.

A defence psychiatrist argued that he was not fit to stand trial but a prosecution expert disagreed. Judge Tony Hunt allowed Bouchaker to stand trial with an interpreter and intermediary.

During the three-week trial Bouchaker denied all eight charges and said he did not intend to kill anyone. Prosecutors said his use of the knife, selection of small children and targeting of their upper bodies, necks and heads indicated an intent to kill.

The jury of three women and nine men found Bouchaker guilty of all charges. Judge Hunt thanked the jury and said the verdicts aligned with the evidence it had heard. He is to impose a sentence in September. “No more needs to be said today,” he said.