Car thief who drove off with 9-month-old baby arrested, desperate parents later find child on roadside
DUBLIN, IRELAND: A car thief who drove off with a nine-month-old baby strapped to the car's back seat on Sunday, August 21, in Cabra, Dublin has been arrested. The man, who is in his 40s, is currently detained at Mountjoy Garda Station under the provisions of Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984. The man hopped into the couple's car just after their children were strapped in, prompting the desperate parents to tail the thief in the learner driver's car. But the driver could not keep up with the stolen car and later discovered the baby abandoned on the side of the road.
The terrifying incident unfolded on Sunday evening at St Attracta Road, Dublin, when the thief jumped into the couple’s Skoda as the family was preparing to leave the house. The young couple, both in their 20s, had just strapped their nine-month-old and seven-year-old son into the backseat before momentarily backing into the house. Moments later, the seven-year-old ran back into the house, when a stranger jumped into the car. The panicked parents ran outside to find the man driving down the road with his baby still inside the vehicle. Moments later upon realizing the infant was in the backseat, the thief left the child on the footpath, the nearby side of the road.
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A relative of the family who spoke to The Independent, said, that the learner driver did their best to pursue the speeding thief, but explained his erratic and dangerous driving made it impossible to follow. “They didn’t know which way he had gone and it took them a while to catch up with the car. He ran a red light somewhere and eventually ended up in Phoenix Park where the car sped up and went flying over the speed ramps,” the unnamed relative said. "The learner driver couldn’t keep up, [the parents] they were terrified for their baby and thought she was still in the car. But then the young mother received a phone call to say that the baby had been found [on a nearby road] in front of a group of shops."
A resident on the road where the baby was found spoke of the moment the thief realized he had unknowingly kidnapped a baby and stopped to unload it. “The man just got out and grabbed the baby out of the back of the car, dumped him in the driveway and sped away." Onlookers, couldn’t believe what happened and ran to take the child. Fortunately, the baby was unharmed in the ordeal. The man, identified as a career criminal who was out on bail, was then re-arrested in connection with the theft of the car. The incident is being investigated by detectives at Mountjoy Garda Station.