Boy (14) guilty of threats to shoot couple

A Dublin boy (14) who threatened to shoot an elderly couple during a burglary has been sent to Trinity House detention centre…

A Dublin boy (14) who threatened to shoot an elderly couple during a burglary has been sent to Trinity House detention centre for two years.

Judge Katherine Delahunt had adjourned sentencing the boy, from Basin Lane, Dublin 8, last May at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after she was informed by counsel that there was no suitable place available to detain him.

She had remanded him in custody at Oberstown Boys School after she said that "a very structured situation" needed to be put in place for the boy without delay.

The boy and a 17-year-old accomplice had attacked the couple in their seventies at an address in Ballyfermot, on November 5th, 2005.

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Garda Collette Dennehy told the court the pair kicked in the door of the house at around 3.30am. They demanded the couple's car keys and threatened to shoot them.

The 14-year-old was drunk at the time and stood over the elderly couple with his hand in his jacket as though he had a concealed weapon. The elderly man suffered a bite mark to his head and an injury to his hand.

Gda Dennehy said the female victim succeeded in raising the alert and when gardaí arrived they found the 17 year-old with blood on his face holding the elderly man in a headlock.