Gardaí in Cork are appealing for witnesses after a masked gang broke into a house and doused a 25-year-old man in petrol as he slept in his bed, threatened to kill him and kidnapped him at gunpoint.
The victim had gone to bed in his rented house at Maryborough Hill in Douglas in Cork around 11pm on Saturday night but was awoken around 2.30am on Sunday morning when two men wearing balaclavas burst into his room and doused him with petrol.
The young man swallowed some of the petrol when the gang splashed it all over him as he lay in the bed, in what gardaí believe was a case of mistaken identity. The gang then threatened to shoot the man and bundled him into a car at gunpoint.
The two men gang drove out of the estate onto the Cork-Carrigaline Road before entering the N40 Cork Ring Road at Bloomfield and driving west out of the city, exiting the Ring Road at Curraheen to head towards the greyhound track.
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The gang then drove down a side road to the Cork City FC training ground, but they hit some concrete bollards which brought the car to a halt. When the driver and his accomplice got out to inspect the damage, the young man managed to jump out of the car and flee.
The gang members, one of whom had sat beside the young man in the back seat of the car with a gun pointed at him, chased him but the young man managed to make it to a nearby housing estate, Bridgefield, where he began knocking on doors looking for help.
Locals raised the alarm, and the young man was taken to the emergency department at Cork University Hospital where he was treated for his injuries including the ingestion of petrol.
The man was later interviewed by gardaí, and he was able to describe the two kidnappers as being in their late 20s to early 30s with one man being around 5ft 9in and the other around 5ft 11in. Both men wore balaclavas and spoke with Cork accents.
Gardaí sealed off the man’s rented house in Maryborough and garda technical experts began an examination of the house for any DNA or forensic evidence. They have also harvested CCTV footage from the estate.
The kidnap victim was able to give gardaí a description a black Opel Astra type car and garda technical experts went to the scene of the crash at Curraheen where they recovered paint samples and plastic ties made into handcuffs from the area.
Officers noticed a similar car with false number plates acting suspiciously on the Glasheen Road on Monday night and they followed it when the vehicle crashed on Summerstown Drive in Wilton.
The occupants fled on foot but gardaí later arrested a 23-year-old man as he was running through a back garden of a house in the estate. He has been taken to Togher Garda Station for questioning.
According to the Garda press office, gardaí in Cork are appealing to any person who was travelling in Maryborough Hill area between 2.30am and 3am or in the Curraheen Park area of Bishopstown between 3.30am and 4am on Sunday morning to contact them.
They are also asking anyone, road users or pedestrians who may have camera footage (including dashcam) are asked to make this footage available to Gardaí at Togher Garda station on 021-4947120.
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