A senior garda has condemned a violent attack by an armed gang on a family home which resulted in a 12-year old-girl needing emergency surgery for a skull fracture after she was hit on the head with a slash hook.
Supt Gary McPolin, who heads up Garda Community Engagement in Cork North West, said that the attack on the house on the New Line in Charleville late on Monday night was appalling as he urged members of the public to assist gardaí in bring the culprits to justice.
“This is utterly reprehensible – a gang of armed men attacked a family home late at night and injured a 12-year-old girl who had to undergo emergency surgery after suffering a severe head wound, it really is a most heinous act,” Supt McPolin told The Irish Times.
“This was a horrific incident where a family were attacked in their own home, and I would urge anyone who can assist gardaí to come forward – there can be no complacency or bystander apathy about this because we need people who can assist us to come forward.”
Gardaí believe the attack on the house and a car on the New Line in Charleville is part of an escalating feud between two extended families, one based in Charleville and surrounding areas in North Cork, and the other with bases in Limerick including in Patrickswell.
Gardaí believe that the attack in Charleville, where the girl was injured and the windows of her home were smashed and a family car was also damaged, is linked to an incident in Patrickswell two weeks ago when a car was also attacked and the windows of a house were smashed.
Detectives have begun checking social media to try to find a video posting by a member of the Charleville grouping, who issued a call out or challenge to fight members of the Limerick faction following Cork’s defeat of Limerick in the All-Ireland hurling semi-final in Croke Park.
Since then, tensions have been simmering between both groupings and gardaí in both North Cork and Limerick were last night on high alert with extra gardaí on patrol looking out for any possible retaliation for the Charleville attack.
The 12-year-old was at home on Monday night with her three younger siblings and was standing in front of her mother in the hallway of the home when one of the five masked and armed attackers smashed the glass window in the front door with a slash hook.
The girl was struck in the head by the blow and suffered a serious laceration as well as multiple cuts from the shattered glass and while she was conscious, she was bleeding profusely when HSE ambulance personnel arrived on the scene, and they moved to staunch the bleeding.
The girl was rushed by ambulance to Cork University Hospital where scans revealed that the girl’s skull had been fractured and a bone fragment driven inward and she was transferred at 5am on Tuesday to Children’s Health Ireland at Temple Street to undergo emergency surgery.
It’s believed that the surgery went well, and the girl remains in an induced coma to assist her recovery. On Tuesday afternoon the Garda Press Office issued a statement stating that the girl remains in a serious but stable condition at Temple Street.
It’s understood that the girl’s mother and her three younger siblings, two girls and a boy, were deeply traumatised by the attack which happened just after the children’s father and two other male members of the extended family left the house.
Gardaí responded to the attack in Charleville and the scene was promptly cordoned off and garda technical experts began a forensic examination of the property on Tuesday while the car was removed for forensic examination at a secure location.
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