A MAN has been charged in connection with a hijacking in Dublin of a car carrying the wife of Donegal’s GAA team doctor and her 10-year-old son.
Bernadette Moran (37) was stopped at traffic lights in Dublin following the All-Ireland senior football championship quarter-final between Donegal and Kerry in Croke Park on August 5th.
Ms Moran was dragged from the car and it was driven away while her son was in the back.
Ms Moran, who is married to Letterkenny surgeon Kevin Moran, managed to grab the boy and take him out when the car stalled.
The vehicle was later discovered abandoned a short distance away.
Yesterday, Christopher Coakley (20), of Empress Place in inner city Dublin, was charged with stealing Ms Moran’s car and with robbing her car keys at Mountjoy Square on August 5th.
Garda Karl Byrne told Judge Bryan Smyth at Dublin District Court that Mr Coakley had been arrested at 12.02am yesterday and he was then charged with both offences.
He said that Mr Coakley “made no reply to the charges after caution”, and he was kept in custody pending his court appearance.
Garda Byrne also said there would be an objection to bail, and directions from the DPP needed to be obtained.
Defence solicitor Aine Flynn said there would not be a bail application at this stage.
She said Mr Coakley was “a vulnerable young person” and psychological assessments of him had been carried out previously.
She asked the judge not to remand him to Cloverhill Prison but instead to St Patrick’s Institute, a detention centre in Dublin for young offenders.
Judge Smyth said he would recommend that Mr Coakley was to be held there.
He remanded him to appear again at the same court next Thursday.
Legal aid was granted to Mr Coakley, who did not address the court.