Cable-tie attackers 'should be jailed for life'

A local councillor has said this week that burglars who tied up and assaulted an elderly man near Mullingar on Saturday week last, should be jailed for life.

“Anyone who harms a child or a pensioner should never see the outside of a jail for the rest of their life,” Cllr Andrew Duncan has said, as gardaí continue their bid to find the three people responsible for the terrifying attack.

The victim, a man understood to be in his 70s, was left covered in severe bruises after being tied to a chair with cable ties and beaten.

His ordeal began at around 1.30pm, when he drove into the yard of his home near Ballinea, to find three men there.

The trio kicked the man’s door in; they bound him to a chair using cable ties, and they beat him up badly.

After taking the man’s shotgun, the intruders stole his jeep and took off.

The vehicle was later discovered in the car park at the Royal Canal in the Grange South area.

Gardaí have conducted a number of checkpoints over the course of the past two weekends in a bid to establish whether anyone from the area noticed anything out of the ordinary.

The gardaí have said they are appealing for anyone with any information or any person with camera (dash-cam) footage, particularly anyone who was in the Ballinea area of Mullingar or any person that availed of the car park facilities at the Royal Canal, Grange South Mullingar between 12-2pm on September 19 to contact Mullingar Garda Station on 044 938 4000, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or any Garda station.

Cllr Duncan spoke with the man in the days after the attack, and says he was horrified at what he saw:

“You’ve heard of people being ‘beaten black and blue’ - well that is literally how that man was. It was very bad.

“The people who did this will probably only get a year or two in jail.

“That’s not right.”