Crime wave escalates

Crime wave escalates


30 garda cars fail to catch suspected burglars after night long county wide pursuit

Edwin McGreal
edwinmcgreal@mayonews.ie

In what is believed to have been one of the biggest car chases to have ever taken place in the west of Ireland, a criminal gang suspected of involvement in a number of burglaries in the county managed to escape capture in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Gardaí from Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Galway and Longford were involved in the chase which lasted from before 8pm on Saturday evening until close to 4am on Sunday morning and travelled the length of the county at speeds sometimes in excess of 200 km/h.
And a lack of suitable cars has been identified by one garda involved in the chase as a contributing factor in not apprehending the criminal gang.
The gang are believed to be behind the theft of money and assault of businesswoman Regina Sweeney in Castlebar shortly before 5pm on Saturday evening. They are also linked with burglaries in Ballina and Enniscrone later the same evening. A spate of burglaries has taken place in the county in recent weeks.
The gang were spotted by Garda Northern Regional Support Unit in Enniscrone and a chase ensued towards Ballina. However the car the gang were driving, a high-powered silver saloon car, believed to be a Subaru Legacy, got away on the Bonniconlon road in Ballina but Gardaí all over the county were notified about the rogue vehicle.
Another garda spotted the car at Foxford and gave chase in the direction of Swinford but the trail went dead close outside Swinford. This was in the region of 8pm but before midnight the car was spotted near Ballindine and another chase commenced.
The chase wound its way through Crossboyne, Roundfort and Hollymount and 15 cars from Galway City converged on Headford to intercept it if it went in that direction.

30 Garda cars used in chase
Gardaí from five counties were involved at this stage, most of the detective branch cars in Mayo and most of the Western Regional Support Unit cars were working on the chase as were many regular patrol cars. Up on 30 cars were involved in the chase, with over 60 gardaí.
The car went to ground for close to an hour in the Hollymount area and, in that time, Gardaí believe that the gang changed number plates from Mayo to Longford plates and also refuelled with fuel cans, believing that the speeds and distances covered couldn’t be managed on one fuel-tank.
It’s also widely believed by gardaí that the gang had access to a radio scanner to intercept Garda radios.
A ‘stinger’ - an implement which is laid across a road in order to puncture the tyres - was laid out near Hollymount but the gang avoided it.
“One garda was telling us how he had the stinger out in the Hollymount area and he was in the bushes and well out of sight, as was his car. About 300 metres from the stinger the car stopped and did a u-turn and went back towards other patrol cars coming at it. He had to be listening to us because the stinger wouldn’t be visible, especially at night,” said a garda.
Gardaí were told to not use the radio channel for stinger instructions and were subsequently told to switch to another radio channel to avoid detection.
The car was spotted again in Hollymount and was chased into Claremorris. As was the case earlier, garda cars could keep with the saloon car on country roads but on open roads like the N17, they were left trailing.
A garda told The Mayo News how an RSU vehicle was doing 200km/h in pursuit but the silver saloon was losing the garda car all the time.
Attempts were made to bring a garda helicopter down from Dublin but this was not sanctioned for a number of reasons, including an issue of fog in the midlands and the fact that no regional airport was open, should refuelling be required.

‘He was playing with us’
On the ground Gardai were continually struggling to keep with the gang.
“He was playing with us,” a garda on the chase admitted. “We’re not being equipped to deal with chases like this. The helicopter would have helped but the biggest problem is that we’ve cars that can’t keep up with high-powered cars like this.
“The danger comes when our small-powered cars are flat out and he’s just cruising along. He was an excellent pilot, he never once looked like losing it, despite the speed he was going at,” added the garda.
The car went north from Claremorris, along the N17, towards Knock. Garda cars converged on Kilkelly from the south, north and west approaches but the car turned off somewhere south of Kilkelly, at about 2am. Gardaí more familiar with the area went down side roads and into farms in search of the car while more gardaí waited along the main road.
However, almost 90 minutes passed without any sign of the car. With shifts finishing at 4am, Roscommon and Longford officers were told they would not be paid for overtime, although Mayo and Galway officers were granted overtime.
“At that stage the chances are he probably wouldn’t have surfaced but it is hard to know if extra Roscommon cars and gardaí would have made a difference,” said a garda.
Galway and Mayo patrols waited until 5am before calling off the search.
Gardaí are looking for any information on a silver saloon car, believed to be a Subaru Legacy 2004-2007 model which was spotted at the scene of a number of burglaries in Ballina, Castlebar and County Sligo. Anyone who has any information is asked to contact Castlebar Garda Station on 094 9022222 or Ballina Garda Station on 096 21422.

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