A dad has hit out at Ireland's justice system after his son was viciously punched in the head by a gang of teenagers in a vile Dublin city centre attack.
Kyrylo Makey, 17, was with his girlfriend in Wolfe Tone Park on Monday night when they were approached by a group of seven teenagers aged around 13 to 14 years old. Kyrylo's father, Oleg said the teens showed him a paper with what looked like Spanish words on it and asked if he could read it.
Oleg told Dublin Live: "I don’t understand why they did it but perhaps they were trying to figure out if he was a foreigner or a local. When he refused them, they heard he had an accent and realised he wasn’t local."
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Kyrylo and his girlfriend tried to walk away but one of the boys stood in front of him and another started hitting him from behind when he tried to get out of the way. Oleg said: "There was a large number of them and it was impossible to defend himself.
"He received a large number of hits to the head. It was the first time in his life that he had that experience." Oleg said the two ended up walking to McDonald's and called him to tell him about the terrifying incident.
A furious Oleg said: "The foreigner is the weakest person in this country but I don’t think that was the main issue. The main problem is that these children aren’t scared of the law. They know they wouldn’t go to jail."
Oleg, who is originally from Ukraine but has lived in Ireland for 20 years, said: "I see that the situation is getting worse. It’s not the problem between Ireland and not accepting foreigners. It’s that in Ireland certain groups of people are abusing the system because the law is too lenient."
Oleg said the family hasn't approached the guards to report the incident due to his previous experience. He said "Unfortunately, I had a bad experience with the guards. I had two bikes stolen in the same area before. I went to the guards and even though it was in the city centre with security cameras, the gardai didn’t do anything.
"One of the stolen bikes was around €1,000. I don’t believe that gardai could help. We would go to gardai if we were confident and there would be some kind of real punishment. But as far as I can understand they’re untouchable. They can do whatever they want.
"It’s difficult to survive in this situation. I see on social media, other Irish people are too scared to go to the city centre."
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