Each time Ana’s mother entered the court she would look at the boys, her anger and grief palpable
‘Geraldine and Patric attended every moment of the trial – they never moved from their seats’
THERE was an unspoken rule in court number nine that no one should look directly at the two boys who murdered Ana Kriegel. Each day, during their six-week trial, Boy A sat at on a bench at the back of the courtroom in Dublin’s Criminal Courts with his mother, father, grandfather and sometimes other family members.
He acted like a child much younger than his 14 years, repeatedly lolling his head on his mother’s shoulder, almost always holding her or his father’s hand and sometimes mumbling aloud.
Boy B sat on a bench in front of him and to his right and the two never so much as glanced in the other’s direction.
He sat with his mother and father and he too belied his teenage years by gripping his mother’s hand tightly for much of the proceedings. Often he appeared to lose interest in what was going on and grew restless.
When journalist Nell McCafferty attended court on one occasion, she repeatedly turned to scowl directly at the boys until one family member complained.
She was subsequently reprimanded by Judge Paul McDermott on the bench.
The only person who could and did focus directly at the boys every day was Ana’s mother, Geraldine Kriegel. Each time she entered the hushed courtroom, she would purposefully look at one or both of the boys, her anger and grief palpable.
If they were aware of her, they didn’t let on and usually stared at the floor.
Geraldine and her husband Patric attended every moment of the trial.
While others took breaks from proceedings to get a drink, make a phone call or get some air, they never moved from their seats to the right of the courtroom.
Accompanied by a member of the victim support group, they sat in front of the gardaí who had investigated their daughter’s death.
Geraldine took constant notes, only stopping when the testimony was particularly upsetting.
One such moment was during one of Boy B’s Garda interviews played to the court, when he described how he thought Ana was unpopular, ‘outcasted’ and wore ‘slutty’ clothes.
‘I thought of Ana like a weirdo. Someone I should not be around.’
During these moments Ana’s parents held each other’s hands tightly.
To ‘protect the children’, no members of the public were allowed into the trial.
Legal people not associated with the trial were also forbidden.
Journalists had to show ID every day and Judge McDermott and the barrister left off their wigs and gowns.
The two boys were allowed to enter the court through a back entrance at Parkgate Street and were given separate rooms in which to rest and eat during breaks.
One fine day, when court had finished, Boy A went for a walk with his family through the Phoenix Park.
They looked like any normal family out for an early summer stroll, except that he held his grandfather’s hand all the while.
Most days, the boys’ families would fetch their food from the canteen during breaks and bring it to their assigned rooms.
But on a couple of occasions, Boy B accompanied his mother to the public canteen where he’d have a sandwich and a fizzy drink. Members of the public, who were aware of who he was, stared.
His mother stared defiantly back at them. He didn’t appear to notice the attention.
On one occasion, Boy B’s barrister returned after lunch to tell the judge that the boy had had a panic attack during the break. Earlier in the day the court had been played an interview where he was forced to admit he had been lying to gardaí.
Highly intelligent and articulate as he came across, his story had begun to crumble.
The judge ordered that the court be stopped for the day and an ambulance was called.
Judge McDermott observed that if an adult was enduring such a trial, it would be an enormous strain. For a 14-year-old, it ‘must be all the more difficult’.
On a bench outside the courtroom, Boy B could be seen laughing with his mother and a security guard.
An ambulance sat by the steps of the courthouse for some time.
The court heard evidence from a number of boys and girls, friends and contemporaries of Ana’s and boys A and B.
Each was well spoken, confident and remarkable in how ordinary they were.
They, too, seemed bewildered by the evil that had happened in their midst. One boy giving evidence via video link from another room in the courts complex, described the boys’ demeanour the day after the murder.
Boy A was ‘agitated and fidgety’, he recalled. But Boy B, well he was ‘calm and collected like he was every day’.
When the verdict eventually came on June 18, there was hysteria in the courtroom.
Boy B’s father began to shout loudly and rushed out of court banging the court door behind him.
Minutes later he was back remonstrating with gardaí and the legal teams, slow hand-clapping as he insulted them.
But all the shouting and loud crying was on the part of the boys’ families, not the Kriegels.
They wept noiselessly before thanking the gardaí, their legal team and the media outside.
Later, Geraldine had the chance to address the court in her victim impact statement – describing the ‘cold fear’ she and her husband experience which ‘brings all the horror back’.
‘Imagine the terror, the pain she
‘I thought of Ana like a weirdo’
Verdict was greeted with hysteria in courtroom
endured,’ she said. ‘That will live with us all our lives.
‘We lie awake at night thinking about when she realised she was going to be killed, the horrendous and sadistic violation of her pure and innocent body.
‘To think she was left to rot for three days, it’s unbearable. It’s unhuman.’
Boy A’s grandfather, who followed her in addressing the court, admitted his pleas for mitigation fell far short of a mother’s anguish.
‘Having listened to Mrs Kriegel who spoke so eloquently, what I have here does not go close to what she can say about Ana.’
This week, after Boy A was sentenced to life and Boy B to 15 years, Patric Kriegel spoke with quiet passion on the steps of the court: ‘The judge has decided on the sentence and that duty lies with him alone.
‘For our part, we can only say that forever is not long enough. ‘Please remember Ana and keep her in your hearts, somewhere.’
‘Imagine the terror, the pain she endured’