Locals to the rescue after young child snatched from pram in inner city
Sheriff Street
Locals came to the rescue after a young child was taken from her pram in the inner city this afternoon.
The terrifying incident occurred on Sheriff Street shortly after 12pm. Dublin Live understands the baby was taken from the pram in a front garden after her mother briefly went back into the house.
But a group of residents were quickly on the scene to confront the abductor. The child was returned to her mother, and the man was arrested at the scene.
Local man Mark Fay told Dublin Live: “A local girl stopped outside her mother’s and had literally just gone into the house for about ten or fifteen seconds. I think she was getting a shopping bag.
“The child was outside in the pram, nothing unusual about that. When she came out, the child was gone out of the pram.
“Two local lads that were just around the corner sussed straight away that the child wasn’t his. Sheriff Street is a small area and very tight knit, so everybody knows everybody, and people would know other people’s children.
“They cornered this guy and the mother came out the house and a couple of women came out of the women’s centre. They cornered him behind the car and they got the child and they got him.
“The police were there fairly promptly. Very, very lucky and it could have been so much worse than it turned out.”
Local Dublin City Councillor Nial Ring told Dublin Live: “It was horrific. Only for the vigilance of a couple of local people you never know what could have happened. He had the child out of the pram and was walking away with the baby, who is around two years of age.”
A garda spokesperson said: “Gardaí from Store Street responded to an incident in the Sheriff Street area of Dublin 1 shortly after 12 noon on Thursday, May 2nd, 2024. A man, aged in his late 20s, was arrested at the scene for an alleged offence under the Non-Fatal Offenses Against the Person Act, 1997, and is currently detained at a Garda Station in the Dublin Region under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984.
“An Garda Siochana is currently investigating and verifying the details of this incident.”
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