BUS TEEN ‘SLASHED FROM EAR TO NECK’
Woman, 37, is bailed for ‘providing blade’ used during alleged attack
A WOMAN has been charged over an alleged bus attack on a teenage boy left permanently scarred after being “slashed” with a blade from his ear to the back of his neck.
Sonia Connolly, 37, who has accommodation in a hotel on Exchequer Street, Temple Bar, Dublin, is accused of violent disorder on May 18 last year.
She allegedly provided an eyebrow blade which is it claimed was used by a second attacker to cut the 16-year-old boy on a double-decker bus.
Detective Garda Keith Morrissey told Judge David Mchugh at Dublin District Court yesterday the woman “had nothing to say” to the charge.
Connolly, who has yet to indicate a plea, did not address the court, which heard objections to her bail due to the seriousness of the case.
Det Garda Morrissey alleged two males and two females, including the accused, boarded a number 16 bus and went upstairs. The injured party got on in South Dublin.
The contested bail hearing was told a row broke out among Connolly’s group, and one of the men left them and “shouted back at the three remaining members”.
The injured party, sitting near the front, “made eye contact” with the man and there was a brief verbal exchange before a “fight broke out”. A second male from the group joined the first, and it was claimed the pair punched the boy.
It was alleged Connolly made her way up the bus to the two males and handed the first one an eyebrow blade, which he used to slash the back of the teen’s neck for 20 centimetres from the “left earlobe to the centre of the back of the neck”. The court heard the blade “broke in two pieces during the assault”. It was claimed the accused held the teen’s head and got blood on her hand. The male was left holding the blade handle when they got off. But the accused allegedly re-boarded, “went upstairs and retrieved the blade” and left again. The judge granted bail and ordered her to return to court on March 15. Two men are before the courts on connected charges.