The juvenile was put on bail that required him to keep a curfew and be home every night at 9pm. Judge David Riordan made it another condition of bail that he would take any calls made by gardaí to him on his mobile phone.
As the juvenile was giving a sworn undertaking to abide by the conditions read out to him in court by registrar, Martin O’Donovan, the teenager spoke up and said he had no phone.
Dermot Sheehan, defending, said the teenager’s mother was present in Cork Circuit Appeals Court yesterday and would let her son use her phone or would get him a phone if required.
The teenager, who is appealing a nine-month sentence for carrying a knife on April 8 last year, then spoke up for a second time, “Why do I have to answer the phone to the guards? I don’t want to be talking to no guards, to be honest, no disrespect or anything.”
The judge adjourned the appeal until July 7. He warned the appellant, “If you are not at home [at the curfew time] they will be in to me like a flash for a warrant for your arrest.”