A boy of 15 obsessed with driving "furiously" around in stolen cars had to spend a night in the cells of Dublin's Bridewell Garda station because there was no other suitable detention centre available, a High Court judge said yesterday. Mr Justice Kelly said he would accede to a plea by social workers that the boy be sent to Oberstown Boys' Centre for the next five days pending his transfer in Garda custody to another detention centre.
This was a "frightful case," the judge said. Social workers said the boy was running wild. He came from a disturbed background in which, it appeared, his mother left Ireland when he was only seven months old. His elder brother was in Mountjoy prison.
In October, the boy was sentenced to two years' detention.
