Thieves prey while church goers pray

A smash and grab attack on eight cars during mass time in Castlerahan prompted a local community activist to hit out at a lack of Garda resources after thieves made off with valuables last Saturday evening, writes Thomas Lyons.
Chairman of the Castlerahan Community Development Group, Larry McGinn, told The Anglo-Celt that it took the Gardaí almost two hours to attend the scene.
The brazen raiders attacked eight cars, smashing windows and making off with any items of value from the vehicles; while an anniversary mass was being celebrated in St Mary's Church, Castlerahan.
“The biggest issue around this was that the Gardaí were not able to attend until nine o'clock. The Bailieboro Garda District patrol car was in Kingscourt on a job and could not attend,” claimed Mr McGinn.

Investigation
Gardaí are investigating the incident, which took place at St Mary's Church, Castlerahan, between seven and eight o’clock on Saturday evening. Mr McGinn said that it was a “terrible scene” and that people were “very distressed”.
“It happened Saturday evening at seven o'clock mass. There was around 90 cars in the car park, it was a bigger crowd than normal. The church was near full because it was a first anniversary mass of very popular man,” Mr McGinn said.
The area where the cars were parked was in a very public place. “It is on the main Ballyjamesduff road, so it is a reasonably busy road. The traffic could pass up and down and see a couple of lads in a carpark. They possibly thought they were putting flyers on cars and not assumed they were up to no good. The carpark is very open,” Mr McGinn told the Celt.

Opportunistic crime
“It was just an opportunistic crime. I would say it happened very quickly. They just grabbed what they could from the cars,” he said.
Mr McGinn said that a car had been noted acting suspiciously before it got to the village. “Someone had followed it... When the car stopped and turned, they called the Gardaí to report that there was a car acting suspiciously... but they could not make contact quick enough,” said Mr McGinn.

He says that, were it not for a chance intervention of a young person, more cars could have been damaged. “A young fellow came out to kick football and, when he appeared, they just jumped in their vehicle and drove off. The guards know what sort of a vehicle it was and I believe that there is CCTV footage from a couple of locations that they are able to check on.”

Reports from the area suggest that mobile phones and handbags were found in the area having been discarded from the vehicle driven by the thieves. It’s understood that a similar incident occurred in Fore in County Westmeath around 6pm - thought it’s not known if they incidents are related.
Superintendent Leo McGinn of Bailieborough Garda Station, meanwhile, told the Celt that investigations are ongoing and acknowledged that resources can be a problem. “There’s not a superintendent or a sergeant in the country who wouldn’t want more resources but, even if we got them, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are 100% going to solve the crime,” he remarked.
The superintendent added that they must deploy available resources where there is the greatest need. Supt McGinn said that they are linking up with gardaí in neighbouring districts to co-operate, share information and resources, and solve crimes.
Anybody with any information on the Castlerhan incident is asked to contact Bailieboro Garda Station on 042-9694570.