Riad Bouchaker, aged 52 and of no fixed address, is charged with attempted murder of two girls and one boy, and assault causing serious harm to an adult, at Parnell Square East in Dublin City on November 23 2023.

Bouchaker is also charged with assaulting three other people, and with producing a 36cm kitchen knife.

He has pleaded not guilty to all eight charges.

On Wednesday, the court heard from one of the first gardaí who responded to the incident.

I had never seen as many at a scene in my career before.

Adam Kealy appeared via videolink to the Central Criminal Court and said he got to the scene as fast as he could when a call came in through Command and Control.

The former member of An Garda Síochána who now lives in Australia told the jury that he saw multiple ambulance crews and personnel treating several people at the scene.

He told the court: “I had never seen as many at a scene in my career before so I knew the situation was serious.”

He confirmed that he saw a member of Dublin Fire Brigade kneeling over another man and appearing to restrain him by gripping his forearm and wrist.

Mr Kealy said he had split up from his garda colleague who had been directed by a member of the public to the possible location of a knife.

He said he was unaware if the person on the ground had any other weapons so he informed him he was going to do a search, handcuffed him and patted him down.

He said he retrieved a wallet which contained a Public Services Card with the name Riad Bouchaker.

Mr Kealy said he also located a mobile phone on the ground and asked the man if it was his.

The jury heard that he may have reached down or looked towards the phone but did not answer.

Mr Kealy said: “He was conscious. He was looking around. I didn’t speak too much with the man on the ground at that time.

“I’m not sure if there was any serious injuries or anything like that or I couldn’t say.”

The court heard Mr Kealy accompanied Mr Bouchaker to the hospital where he was told he was was sedated.

He said he was being told this because if gardaí wanted to obtain a urine sample, benzos and morphine would show up in the forensic tests.

He said he was later told that two urine samples were obtained and a doctor informed him that it was negative for toxins.

Mr Kealy said it was his understanding that the initial drug test on the urine sample had come back negative.

He then removed handcuffs from Bouchaker.

Under cross examination from Bouchaker’s defence counsel, Mr Kealy said: “He didn’t verbally speak to me at any stage.”

Elsewhere, the jury heard from two sisters who were visiting Dublin from Australia on the day in question.

Alison and Catherine Carbery had been travelling up Parnell Square East towards an Andy Warhol exhibit at the Hugh Lane Gallery when they heard a scream and saw what they initially believed to be an argument between a man and a woman.

Alison Carbery told the court: “I distinctly remember saying to my sister momentarily after ‘he’s got a knife, he’s stabbing the children’ and I remember very clearly seeing him stab one of the children from across the street, I could see the knife, I could see the stabbing motion.”

She later said she may have said he was “stabbing a child”.

Asked by Bouchaker’s defence if it was possible that she saw a man waving a knife in an “utterly belligerent, violent and upsetting way” and that she had added “two and two and got five” by recalling he had stabbed a child in the torso, she said no because she recalled the words she said to her sister.

The defence barrister also asked her sister Catherine if she could not exclude the possibility that the man’s purpose was to terrify and intimidate by waving the knife around but not to stab.

She said she could only state what she believed to be happening and added: “I believe he was injuring the child.”

Both sisters also gave evidence via videolink from Australia.

Before the lunch break, the jury heard from Carlos Antonio Lopes Dos Santos who said he was “like a few steps” away from the incident.

Availing of a Portuguese interpreter, Mr Dos Santos said he had heard screaming and saw a man with a knife near children.

Mr Dos Santos said it was his recollection that the man was moving the knife “quickly” with the first two children and then “dug in the knife very profoundly, very deeply” into the third child – who he said was a girl.

Under cross examination, he said he did not see the man “dig the knife in” with the first two children but added: “I feel that he definitely did it to the first two kids but he wanted to do it as quickly as possible to get as many kids as he could.”

The trial continues.