A heavily pregnant woman was assaulted
yesterday after the parked car in which she was sitting was hijacked by a man with a blood-filled syringe.
After driving away in the car in which she had been a passenger, he punched the woman in the head in an effort to force her from the moving vehicle.
It is the second carjacking incident in the capital in less than a month.
The victim, a Chinese national aged in her 30s, was brought to the Rotunda hospital where she was treated for facial injuries.
She had been sitting in the passenger seat of the vehicle at about 3pm on Hill Street near Mountjoy Square in Dublin when the driver of the car, thought to be her partner, got out to pay for parking.
With the keys still in the vehicle, a passing man armed with a syringe jumped in and sped from the scene attempting to force the woman, who is 30 weeks pregnant, out of the moving car.
At the same time, a patrol car that happened to be in the area spotted the original driver giving chase on foot. It is understood the woman could also be heard screaming from the vehicle.
Brief pursuit
Gardaí followed and the car stopped on nearby Sean MacDermott Street following a brief pursuit. The 28-year-old man, who is from the south inner city and is known to gardaí, attempted to escape but was immediately apprehended and arrested.
“She doesn’t have any lasting injuries but she is quite traumatised,” a source said of the victim last night.
Gardaí were working on the assumption that it was an opportunistic crime; the man had been intent on some kind of theft and acted when he saw his chance to seize the vehicle.
He was being questioned last night in Store Street Garda station under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act.
Although it is the second such crime of its kind in the last few weeks, gardaí do not believe there is any significant increase in the number of carjackings.
A woman in her late 50s was seriously assaulted by a man and a woman outside her Argyle House apartment in Ballsbridge, Dublin last month. Her car was stolen and recovered the next day.
Gardaí have arrested and interviewed a man and a woman in connection with that incident and files have been prepared for the DPP.
