Crime & Law

Man (40s) arrested in connection with hijacking of car with baby girl inside

Man is being held at Garda station in Dublin after incident which led to major alert

The silver Nissan Qashqai, which was taken, with a baby girl inside, from Mountjoy Square on Monday afternoon. Photo: Garda Press Office
Tue Sept 24 2024 - 20:42

A man has been arrested as part of an investigation into the hijacking of a car with a five-month-old baby girl inside.

The incident occurred in Mountjoy Square in Dublin city centre on Monday afternoon.

The man, in his 40s, was arrested for an offence contrary to the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Act, 1976, the Unlawful Seizure of Vehicles. He is being held at a Garda station in north Dublin.

Investigations into the incident are ongoing.

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The girl was in the back of a silver Nissan Qashqai hatchback when it was stolen from Mountjoy Square West about 1.50pm on Monday, leading to a big alert.

The car, with the child still in it, was located parked on North Richmond Street, Dublin 1, shortly after 4pm by a garda unit on patrol and reunited with her parents soon thereafter.

Gardaí examined CCTV footage from the area and appealed for witnesses or people with dashcam footage to come forward to Mountjoy Garda station, where an incident room was established.

Earlier it had emerged that gardaí believed a serial offender with a history of convictions for chaotic crimes was behind the theft.

That suspect, a Dubliner in his late 40s, is believed to have committed almost identical previous crimes in which vehicles were taken after their owners had stepped out of them. However, it is not believed he knew of the presence of the baby girl inside.

Gardaí believe that once the thief realised the child was there, he decided to abandon the car about 600 metres from where he took it.