Boy walks free after axe attack

Tom Tuite

A TEENAGER who threw a hatchet at a garda in a bid to prevent his father being arrested for domestic violence has been spared a custodial sentence and a conviction.

The 17-year-old pleaded guilty at the Children's Court to possessing a hammer and a plank as weapons and obstructing an arrest at a Dublin halting site in July last year.

Defence solicitor Sarah Molloy told the court that reports from the HSE and the Probation and Welfare Service detailed the difficult domestic problems in the boy's family at the time.

She said the boy hoped to begin a training course.

Judge Bryan Smyth also noted that the boy had not come to garda attention since the incident. He applied the Probation Act, which leaves him without a criminal conviction.

The court heard that there had been a domestic incident at the teen's home and his mother had called the gardai. There had been history of violence in his home and he was trying to intervene when the gardai came to arrest his father.