A TEENAGER who helped blow up a disused supermarket, valued at £200,000, has been given a choice by Judge Kieran O'Connor: "Become a model boy or serve three years' imprisonment."
Judge O'Connor told the now 14 year old boy he was lucky to appear before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court when he adjourned the case to October 31st.
"You might have been killed, or maimed by having a limb blown off, or been blinded," he told the defendant who cannot be named for legal reasons. He admitted causing criminal damage to the Tallaght site on May 5th, 1994, when he was 12.
Garda Sgt Orla McPartlin told the court the defendant and two others lit a stolen gas cylinder and caused an explosion. An older youth, who stole the cylinder, was given four years detention for that and other offences last December.
Judge O'Connor advised the defendant to have a look at St Patrick's Institution from the outside. He told him he would be going there unless he abided probation supervision, and the strict conditions of remaining in school, not associating with trouble makers, controlling his temper, as well as a 9 p.m. curfew even during the summer.
Sgt McPartlin told Judge O'Connor the boy's mother insisted she did not want the case dealt under the Juvenile Liaison Scheme. She felt if it took its course through the courts her son would better understand its seriousness.