A mother has told a jury at the Central Criminal Court her five-year-old son suffered a wound to his neck during an incident near his school on Parnell Square in November 2023.In evidence, during the trial of Riad Bouchaker for eight offences connected to the incident, the woman said she was present when her son’s wound was treated with steri-stitches and dressed in Crumlin children’s hospital on November 23rd, 2023.The woman told Bouchaker’s counsel she did not remember a doctor telling her the wound was superficial but accepted she had said that in a statement.Today is the second day of the trial of Bouchaker (52), a native of Algeria of no fixed abode, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to murder three children, two girls and a boy, on Parnell Square East on November 23rd, 2023. He has also denied assault causing harm to two other children and to a passerby who intervened to assist, and denies a charge of assault causing serious harm to a care worker. He denies a further charge of producing an article capable of inflicting serious injury, a 36cm kitchen knife. In his opening address for the prosecution, senior counsel Karl Finnegan said its case is that Bouchaker ‘s actions at Parnell Square, including stabbing and jabbing with a knife, “targeting” young children and the need for members of the public to stop him, showed he intended to kill.Bouchaker told gardaí during interviews he knew he had done something wrong but he was sick and not in his right mind at the time and had no intention to kill anyone, counsel said. He had said he was angry about being refused a social welfare payment that day and had a knife.Bouchaker, the jury has been told, had a head operation prior to November 2023 and suffered a head injury during the incident at Parnell Square and now has an acquired brain injury.Prior to the trial, Judge Tony Hunt found Bouchaker was fit to plead and told the jury that special mental health defences are not available to him. In evidence, the mother of the five-year-old boy told Finnegan she brought her son and her other children to a creche at Parnell Square, near the school, at about 8.30am on November 23rd, 2023, and returned home. The child had gone to the creche to be taken by creche staff to school when it opened.She received a phone call from her son’s teacher that afternoon and was told there had been an incident at the school and that her son was hurt but okay. She got another call from the school principal and, as a result, went to Crumlin hospital. She arrived before an ambulance carrying her son arrived and when she entered it he was looking at cartoons on a garda’s phone, she said.Her son was taken into the hospital where staff were prepared to deal with ambulances arriving with children, she said. He had a wound to his neck that was treated with steri-stitches and a dressing. She spoke to gardaí and they took possession of her son’s clothes. He was wearing as tracksuit and coat that day, she said.In evidence, Det Garda John Hetherton was asked about gathering CCTV evidence from Parnell Square and various other locations, including Dunnes Stores in the Ilac Centre.The case continues before the judge and a jury of nine men and three women.