Sense of unease follows recent street attacks

RECENT weeks have seen a series of horrifying and utterly random attacks being perpetrated on innocent young people as they went about their business on the streets of major local towns like Navan.

This week in Dublin has seen a savage attack carried out on two Polish building workers, one of whom died after being set upon by a teenage gang and stabbed in the head with what appears to have been a screwdriver. The other man remains in a critical condition in hospital.

Last week, in Kells, a 13 year-old schoolboy was attacked and badly beaten by a gang of other teens who lay in wait for him as he returned home from school. The merciless beating dished out to the young man was recorded as a video on at least one mobile phone, something that has echoes of the ridiculously titled 'happy slapping' phenomenon whereby an unsuspecting victim is attacked while the episode is recorded on a camera phone.

By and large, up to now, vicious random assaults on the streets of Meath's towns and villages have been relatively rare compared to some of the country's larger towns and cities, but such incidents do appear to be on the increase over the last few months. The mother of a recent victim of a random attack in Navan remarked after her son had been found lying in a pool of blood while on his way home after a night out: "You never expect it to happen on your doorstep. Most people who heard what happened thought it must have happened in Dublin. They couldn't believe that you could not walk home safely in Navan."

The young student victim was so badly beaten that when his friends came upon his prone body 20 minutes after the assault, they did not recognise him. His own advice to people after suffering this unprovoked attack was never to walk home alone late at night.

His thoughts will be echoed by many people who recall Navan being a town where one could quite safely walk home alone at night in times past. That was certainly the impression another victim of a random attack in the centre of Navan had before he was also attacked for no reason as he tried to hail a taxi in the centre of Navan a couple of weeks later. He was subjected to a severe kicking after he was knocked to the ground and ended up in hospital with extensive head and shoulder injuries.

There have been three serious publicised incidents, as well as many others including an incident involving a young girl in Navan in recent weeks.

The latest attack in Kells occurred in broad daylight after school and appears more related to bullying than a random alcohol or drug-fuelled attack which may have been the case in both Navan incidents. Nonetheless, it was an equally serious incident and has left a young teenager traumatised and afraid to return to school, with all the consequences this has for his emotional and psychological well-being as well as his continuing education.

All these recent attacks are symptomatic of a cancerous malaise in our modern society where getting one's 'kicks' involves doing untold damage to other human beings. These marauding gangs who are going around beating up others must be confronted robustly by the forces of law and order. Enforcement of the law of the land by a properly resourced and highly visible Garda presence on the streets - particularly in the big towns after midnight - is the only way to bring wayward thugs to book. The courts must also ensure that those convicted of such acts are deterred from doing it again by making the punishment fit the crime.

For young teens involved in such nasty incidents, clearly parents must face up to their responsibilities and have a major role to play in ensuring their children are not involved in such activity. There is also a role for the Garda Juvenile Liaison Scheme here in trying to ensure that youngsters who have been involved in such activities are discouraged from the wayward path they have chosen.