AN ITALIAN TEENAGER who was paralysed after an attack in a Dublin park may never be able to settle down in Ireland despite longing to return.

Guido Nasi, who was 17 when he was nearly fatally assaulted in 1999, would consider a long-term future in Ireland if there was adequate nursing care available to him, said Bernadette Kelly, a Nasi family friend and volunteer with the Irish Tourist Assistance Service.

I don’t think he’d be able to move back as things are. He’s looking for a nursing home but there isn’t any home here that can provide him with the kind of mental stimulation that he needs.

Nasi, who is now 33, was left paraplegic and nearly blind after he was struck on the head with a half-full bottle during the unprovoked attack in Fairview Park.

Kelly told TheJournal.ie that he continues to feel a connection to Ireland in spite of the devastating assault he suffered here.

“He thought Ireland was the best place in the world,” she said.

She said he misses the Irish landscape and still receives letters from people in Ireland. A number of fundraising activities for the Italian family were undertaken by Dublin people in the years since the attack.

Now a wheelchair user Nasi, who receives around-the-clock care from his 73-year-old mother in Turin, is isolated in his home country, according to Kelly.

His school friends in Italy haven’t kept in touch with him. They’ve all gone off and finished university, so he’s by himself all the time. He’s just trying to fill his time as best he can.

She added:

The main problem is that he is so depressed. He has gone from being a healthy 17 year old to now having to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It’s a desperate situation.

Dublin man James Osbourne was jailed for eight-and-a-half years for the attack. He was released in 2008.