A male individual has been apprehended due to his involvement in a car hijacking investigation. The vehicle in question had a five-month-old infant girl in it at the time of the offense. The incident took place in the heart of Dublin city, at Mountjoy Square, on a Monday afternoon.
The arrested man, who is in his 40s, is being accused of an act that is against the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Act 1976, explicitly relating to the illegal capturing of vehicles. Currently, he is in custody at a police station in North Dublin.
The investigation into this case continues. The young girl was in a silver Nissan Qashqai hatchback, which was taken from Mountjoy Square West on Monday afternoon around 1.50pm, triggering a significant alert. The car was found, with the child unharmed inside, on North Richmond Street, Dublin 1, shortly after 4pm. This was achieved by a patrolling police unit, and the child was promptly returned to her parents.
Upon reviewing CCTV footage from the related area, the police urged eyewitnesses or individuals with dashcam videos to approach Mountjoy Police Station, where a room was set up specifically for this incident. Early evaluations led the police to suspect a recurrent offender with a record of erratic criminal activities to be the perpetrator of the car theft.
This suspect, a Dublin resident in his late 40s, is likely to have committed nearly identical crimes in the past, where he stole vehicles left unattended by their owners. It is assumed that he was unaware of the infant girl in the car at the time of the hijacking. According to the police, the thief must have left the car around 600 metres from where he stole it once he recognised the child inside.