Gardaí in Cork were on Wednesday night continuing to question a 23-year-old man who threatened a woman at knifepoint and hijacked her car after she stopped to help him.
At about 7.10am on Wednesday, the woman, in her 30s, was driving from her home in Grenagh between Mallow and Cork city to work in Charleville and noticed a young man standing at the side of the road in the freezing rain.
The woman stopped to ask the man if he needed a lift. He got into her Opel Insignia, but they had travelled less than 100 metres when he produced a knife and put it to the woman's throat and ordered her from the car.
The woman got out and the man drove off in the direction of Mallow on the main Cork-Mallow Road. The woman, who was uninjured, contacted gardaí and a major investigation began.
Detectives from Gurranebraher Garda station in Cork city were joined by officers from Mayfield and Mallow in a search for the hijacker. During the search they found another car, which had been stolen from Bweeng overnight, near where the man had hijacked the woman's Opel.
Crashed in ditch
Gardaí received reports of the stolen Opel driving towards Mallow and turning off for Dromahane and Glantane before they found it at about 10am, crashed into a ditch in Bweeng after skidding on black ice.
The hijacker had taken off on foot across fields but gardaí, backed up by armed members of the Regional Support Unit, arrested him at a nearby house.
The man, from the Gurranebraher area of Cork city, was arrested under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, which allows detention for up to 24 hours.
He was brought to Gurranebraher Garda station for questioning.
Gardaí removed the crashed Opel Insignia for forensic examination.
They appealed to anyone who may have seen the 142 C registration car in the Grenagh, Mallow, Dromahane, Glantane or Bweeng areas between 7am and 10am to contact them at Gurranebraher on-021 4946200.
