Girl stabbed in Parnell Square now uses wheelchair and can’t speak

Candles and tributes were left outside a school on Parnel Square, where three children were injured in the stabbing on November 23, 2023 (Picture: PA)

The mother of a young girl who nearly died in a stabbing outside an Irish school has revealed how her daughter is doing after the attack.

The child, aged five at the time, was seriously injured along with another young girl, a boy and a creche worker during a stabbing on Dublin’s Parnell Square.

Riad Bouchaker, 52, originally from Algeria, is accused of attempted murder of three children and other charges over the incident on November 23, 2023.

He has denied the charges and claimed he was ‘not in his right mind’ at the time, the Irish Times reports.

The girl’s mum was left in limbo over whether her daughter would survive the attack as the youngster was rushed into surgery following significant blood loss.

The stabbing sparked violent protests in Dublin city centre in November 2023, with the Garda deployed to quell the unrest (Picture: PA)

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The mum’s first question to the medics was ‘is she dead?’ after a life-saving operation.

Her daughter, who has not been named for legal reasons, had suffered a wound to her heart and her brain was left without oxygen for around 40 minutes.

The girl stayed in the ICU for three weeks and was under heavy sedation so that doctors could understand the extent of damage to her brain.

She has been required to relearn everything over the course of her recovery, her family said previously.

The children had left the Gaelscoil Cholaiste Mhuire school on Parnell Square, Dublin, when the attack unfolded (Picture: PA)

At the moment, she is non-verbal and in a wheelchair, and learning to swallow again.

She uses blinking to indicate yes or no, and she relies on medication to go to sleep.

The woman told a Central Criminal Court jury how she received a tearful call from the creche owner where her daughter attended before school on the day of the stabbing.

The owner told the mum, who worked nearby, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, […] has been stabbed, you have to come’ and that it happened in front of the school.

She told the court: ‘I stopped breathing for a second but I kept running and I got there.’

The mum could see her daughter’s pink backpack and pink shoes near the school entrance as the emergency workers surrounded her.

‘I stopped and let them work because I could not do anything for her at that moment,’ she said.

Her daughter had celebrated her fifth birthday at the time of the events.

Bouchaker, of no fixed abode, is charged with attempted murder of two girls and one boy, and assault causing serious harm to a care worker, assaulting three people and producing a 36cm kitchen knife.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges through an interpreter.

The trial continues.

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