Gardaí have begun a technical examination of a stolen car believed to have been used by thieves to ram a 23-year-old Deliveroo driver following an alleged road rage incident.
The Deliveroo driver was left with serious leg injuries after his leg trapped beneath his Honda 125 motorbike when it fell on him during the incident.
Gardaí found the Skoda Kodiaq burnt out in a field in Carrignavar, 12 kms north of Cork city, early on Friday morning just hours after the ramming of the Deliveroo driver in the city. The car was badly gutted in the fire, but investigators are still hoping that garda technical experts will be able to obtain some forensic samples that might help them identify the occupants.
Gardaí suspect that the occupant or occupants of the stolen Skoda Kodiaq were collected by a driver in another car.
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They have also begun harvesting CCTV footage along possible routes to Carrignavar from Cork city as well as in Carrignavar village to try to identify the pickup car used by the thieves.
Meanwhile it has emerged that the occupants of the stolen Skoda were reportedly involved in an attempted ramming around an hour before they crashed into the Deliveroo driver on Thursday night.
The two male of occupants of the Skoda were challenged by two men in the Little Island area of east Cork at around 11pm on Thursday night when they noticed them tampering with a car. The two men confronted the car thieves, but the thieves managed to drive off, with the driver of the Skoda attempting to knock down one of the men who just managed to jump out of the way. The car thieves then appeared to drive some 8 kms to the Mahon area of Cork’s southside where they had some interaction with the Deliveroo driver which led them to pursue him to Beaumont.
The Deliveroo driver, a Brazilian man, was knocked off his bike by the car thieves when they rammed him on the junction of Woodvale Road and Beaumont Lawn at around midnight.
Locals on Woodvale Road heard the impact and emerged to find the Deliveroo driver lying injured on the road, and they contacted the emergency services who were quickly on the scene. The injured man was treated by HSE paramedics at the scene before he was removed by ambulance to Cork University Hospital where he is now in a stable condition following surgery.
The car thieves fled the scene in the stolen Skoda and later rammed a marked garda patrol car on the Old Mallow Road on the northside of Cork City at around 2am on Friday morning.
Two officers in the car suffered minor injuries in the collision as the thieves sped off northwards away from the city and towards Mallow before they were encountered by an off duty garda.
The off-duty officer pursued the thieves but lost them near Bottle Hill, some 22 kilometres from Cork City but only eight kilometres from where the stolen Skoda was later found burnt out.
The Skoda had been stolen from Courtbrack near Blarney on October 21st and gardaí are trying to establish where the thieves hid the car before they went on the rampage on Halloween Night.
Gardaí have appealed to anyone who may have noticed any suspicious activity in the Mahon, Beaumont, Old Mallow Road, Little Island or Carrignavar areas to contact them.
They are particularly anxious to hear from anyone who may have dash cam footage that might assist them and have asked them to contact Anglesea St Garda station on 021-4522000.
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