Highly-disturbed teenager who has threatened to kill mother due for release

18-year-old arrested by gardaí on release from secure care unit

It will be decided later on Friday whether a highly-disturbed teenager who has allegedly threatened to murder her mother will be released from custody or charged.

The teenager was arrested by gardaí on Thursday as she was about to be released from a secure care unit.

She was taken to a local Garda station to be questioned as part of an investigation into threats she is alleged to have made.

The teenager is feared to be a particular threat to her mother. She has also allegedly sexually assaulted two other women, and threatened to harm a third.

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The High Court heard earlier this month that her mother had moved home, to a new residence in a new county, as a result of Garda fears for her safety.

The hearings, held in camera, were told there was no medical basis for making the teenager a ward of court.

The 24-hour period which applies to the teenager’s detention will expire later on Friday. At that stage she must either be released or charged.

There is also an issue of bail conditions that apply in relation to charges that have already been laid against the teenager in relation to the alleged sexual assault of the two women.

The teenager, who is now eighteen has been in the care of the child and family agency, Tusla.

Details as to the teenager’s troubled past cannot be published for fear they might identify her.

If the teenager is charged, then she will be brought to a sitting of the District Court, where the issue of bail will be decided in relation to any fresh charges that might be brought against her.

During the High Court hearings earlier this month it was stated that the teenager needed to be placed in a specialist unit in the UK, because of the complex nature of her case, which exceeds anything the services here have to date encountered.

However efforts to date to find a secure unit that would take her in had been unsuccessful, the court heard.

Colm Keena

Colm Keena

Colm Keena is an Irish Times journalist. He was previously legal-affairs correspondent and public-affairs correspondent