A 10-month-old baby was left abandoned on the side of a road in Dublin on Sunday by a thief who drove off in a family’s car with the child still in the back seat.
The baby was thankfully found unharmed after the terrifying incident, which happened outside the family’s home on Attracta Road in Cabra, on the northside of Dublin, at around 7pm on Sunday evening.
The baby’s mother and partner, both in their twenties, had briefly left the car with the engine running outside their home, with two young children still in the back seat. It has been reported that the mother went inside the house to get something, and her partner followed her in. It is believed that the perpetrator had been watching the couple, and when he saw they had left the car, he jumped into the Skoda and drove off.
It has been reported that as soon as he got into the car, the other child, who is under the age of nine, managed to jump out before the car drove away – while the carjacker drove off with the baby still strapped into the back of the car.
According to sources, after a few moments, the man, reported to be a drug addict, discovered there was a young baby in the back. He took the child from the car, and left the baby, still strapped into the car seat on a footpath, before speeding away. Thankfully the child did not come to any harm, and did not require medical attention afterwards.
There has so far been no arrest made, and the car is yet to be recovered. Mountjoy Garda station has launched an investigation into the weekend incident. A description of the suspect has not yet been released.
Gardai are currently examining CCTV in an effort to identify the thief and establish where he travelled in the car. They are also investigating whether the person responsible is the same person who unsuccessfully attempted to hijack a car in closeby Phibsborough just minutes prior.
According to the Belfast Telegraph, a source said: “In this earlier incident a driver was stopped at lights when the suspect gained entry to his car, but the driver managed to exit the vehicle and run away with the keys of the vehicle.”
It’s not the first incident of its kind in recent months. In April, a young man in his twenties was dragged from his car in broad daylight in a carjacking which took place in West Pier car park in Dun Laoghaire. He managed to grab his keys from the car, and the carjackers fled the scene on foot.
In June, a woman was injured when two men stole her car in North Dublin after she got out of her vehicle to lock the gates of a church in the Eccles Street area of the capital. She was taken to the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital and was treated for non-life threatening injuries.