Gardaí are following a definite line of inquiry in their investigation into the ramming of a 23-year-old Brazilian Deliveroo driver on Halloween night in Cork by a gang of car thieves.
Investigators have obtained good descriptions of the two men from Alexandre Athos Pinhero Teixeira (23), and two other men who had separate interactions with them, also on October 31st.
Mr Teixeira suffered a compound fracture of his leg when the car thieves drove at him in a stolen Skoda Kodiaq, after they chased him from Mahon to Beaumont on Cork’s southside at 11.50pm.
They caught up with him at the junction of Beaumont Lawn and Woodvale Road, where they knocked him off his Honda 125. One of the men then got out of the car and attacked him.
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“They knocked me off the motorcycle with the car, but at that moment I hadn’t been hurt yet. I was fine,” said Mr Teixeira, who is also an English student, as he told how he defended himself when one man punched him.
The man then got back into the stolen Skoda and the driver drove the car at him. He was caught between the car and his motorbike, resulting in a bad fracture to his leg.
Mr Teixeira’s description of the two men, in their mid-20s, matches those given to gardaí by two men who had separate encounters with the occupants of the stolen black Skoda earlier on October 31st.
At 11pm, a man disturbed the pair trying to break into cars in Little Island, eight kilometres from the city. When he confronted them, they drove at him as they fled.
At 6am in the morning of the same day, another man disturbed two men trying to break into a car in Ballinlough on the city’s southside. They threatened him with a knife before driving off.
Gardaí were alerted after the attack on Mr Teixeira, and members of the force stationed at Gurranabraher were rammed in their patrol car when they tried to stop the thieves on the Old Mallow Road outside the city.
The car thieves made their getaway and the Skoda, which had been stolen from Courtbrack on October 21st, was found burnt out in Carrignavar, 12km north of Cork city, on Friday morning.
Gardaí have begun checking for CCTV along the routes to Carrignavar from the city, while they have also harvested CCTV footage from Little Island, Mahon, Beaumont and Ballinlough.
Garda sources said they are following up on the descriptions of the two culprits by Mr Teixeira and the other men while they are also trying to trace a woman who was with them in Beaumont.
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