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Teen Pleads Guilty to Brutal Attack on Lesbian Couple
Teen Pleads Guilty to Brutal Attack on Lesbian Couple
The boy grew enraged when he saw the couple kissing and cuddling at a bus stop.
A teenage boy in Ireland pleaded guilty to the brutal assault on a lesbian couple after he saw them kissing at a bus shelter. The boy will be sentenced as a juvenile.
According to a report in the Independent, the 16-year-old boy, whose name cannot be released due to his age, admitted to attacking Robyn Deane, 22, and her partner Kate McCabe, 25, in broad daylight on May 16 opposite St. Patrick’s College in Dublin.
Garda Declan Phelan told the court the boy, who was 15 at the time of the attack, was walking with an older man when he grew enraged at the site of McCabe and Deane kissing and cuddling in public. Phelan said the youth called the couple “two f*ck*ng dykes” before striking McCabe “with a closed fist punch.” He continued yelling as he repeatedly punched McCabe. When Deane tried to intervene, Phelen said the boy “turned his focus on her” and struck her “with a flurry of punches to her face and head.”
Despite his youth, Phelan described the boy as the “main aggressor” in the attack. The man is facing charges for the attack in a separate trial.
The court was shown photos of Deane and McCabe following the attack, which left the couple suffering from visible bruising about the face, head, neck, back, arms, and hands.
“Me and Kate just got gay-bashed,” Deane wrote in a post to social media at the time. “This is what being lesbians in Ireland is.”
A GoFundMe page said up by a friend closed after it raised over €13,000 in a single day. Deane later thanked the public for their generosity while adding, “All I keep thinking is I am so glad we are still alive.”
During testimony, the court heard the teen suffered a traumatic family life due to the drug and alcohol abuse of his parents. He was accompanied to court by his grandmother.
District Court president Judge Paul Kelly could have forced the case to be heard in a Circuit Court which would have been able to levy more severe punishments, but accepted jurisdiction of the case in the Children’s Court. He will hand down a sentence at a later court date.
