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A FAMILY HAVE described the terrifying ordeal they endured when a group of men broke into their home in Limerick, threatened them at gunpoint and assaulted them in April 2012.
Just weeks later, these same men brutally assaulted their elderly neighbours in another break-in.
On Friday, 54-year-old Patrick Roche, his son Philip Roche aged 24, both with addresses in Clondalkin in Dublin, and a son-in-law Alan Freeman with an address in Tipperary town were given lengthy prison sentences for their parts in the two violent robberies.
Gerry and Ann Garvey spoke to RTÉ’s Seán O’Rourke this morning about the impact these incidents had on them and on their vulnerable neighbours.
“I heard a very loud bang,” Gerry said, explaining that at first he thought his teenage son and daughter in the next room had just broken something. He then heard glass smashing, and he saw a group of masked and armed men in his home.
When they came in first, it was the usual, shouting, screaming…they said things like ‘We’ll blow your head off’, ‘We’ll take your children, you’ll never see them again’.
“I was in the bath, which is your worst nightmare,” Ann said. Her children had run upstairs to warn her.
“I was mainly concerned with my son and daughter. They were told to lie down and the man put his foot on his [my son's] shoulder. My son was very angry. I didn’t know why he was so angry, I was afraid he was going to hit out at him.”
“I was forced down onto the ground and handcuffed behind my back and the butt of the gun literally forced into my forehead for a period,” Gerry told the radio programme. “It’s quite a frightening moment because you feel completely helpless, there’s absolutely nothing you can do to help yourself or your family.”
‘Left for dead’
Six weeks later, the same men broke into the home of their neighbours, Willie, Nora and Chrissie Creed. They tied up the three siblings, who are all in their 70s, before assaulting them, leaving them covered in blood.
Willie Creed was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver during the ordeal.
“Those three people, they were left for dead,” Ann Garvey said. “It was an incredible situation. It went on for two, two-and-a-half hours and nearly six years on they don’t go out, we don’t see them.”
“Time is a great healer and we have moved on with our lives, but you’ll move on from it, you’ll get on with it to some extent but you’ll never forget it,” her husband said.
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It’s a stain on humanity that we don’t have a UN that’s fit for purpose .
How’s it not fit for purpose
@Gavin Lynam: he doesn’t really know, I suspect.
“Helping hand for Sudanese in Ireland”
We must open our homes. There will be millions displaced from this war.
Open Ireland up
@shuttleJohn: very bad trolling seriously
This war appears to be a proxy war (not like the Ukraine war) as the Wagner group is involved. Euronews says “According to a number of international investigations, the Wagner Group’s goal in Sudan is to provide Moscow access to resources, which, Russia then uses to finance the war in Ukraine. One of its main objectives is acquiring gold, as Sudan is the third largest producer of the mineral in Africa”
@Paul Furey: Maybe the west/left/powers that be are annoyed that it’s not the CIA or or some other pro west agency are not installed there. African countries do not have to select one of ‘ours’ just because we think we’re better. If it was a western funded group in Sudan instead of Wagner, they would no doubt also plunder and pillage as we’ve always done. Indeed, the ‘west’ have not done well by Africa in broad terms. Oh and to your point, the war in Ukraine is a proxy war from the west to the east all under the guise of ‘we care’.
@Chris Thaunton: Egypt is backing the military…Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are backing the paramilitaries. German companies have being supplying arms to the military side. Yes it is a proxy war…Just another conflict in Africa.. All because what lays under the ground that the people walk on.
The dark, scùmmy hand of the Kremlin all over this conflict. A stain on humanity.
800,000 fleeing, in a country of over 40 million and the two opposing sides have less than half a million soldiers between them. The millions that are surely on the side of democracy should get organised.
Peacefully headed our way, peacefully.
Fair enough! But some posters write too much and it gets in the way Imo.
have your say