Woman, 88, terrorised in her home

Vicious thugs broke in just after her son left to get the groceries

TWO thugs terrorised a woman aged 88 in her home, grabbing her wrist, threatening her with a screwdriver and leaving her traumatised.

Thieves broke into her isolated home in Croghan, Co. Offaly, on Wednesday. It’s the second shocking attack on an Offaly pensioner this week.

A PAIR of thugs have terrorised an 88-year-old woman in her own home, grabbing her wrist, threatening her with a screwdriver and leaving her traumatised after her horrifying ordeal.

In the second such terrifying attack in rural Offaly this week, just days before Christmas, the two men broke into her isolated home in Croghan, near Rhode, just after 6pm on Wednesday.

Her middle-aged son had just gone out to buy some groceries. The men repeatedly demanded to know where she kept her money and smashed a wardrobe door while looking for cash, before leaving with a small amount of her pension money. The attack is the latest in a number of brutal burglaries on people living in rural parts of the county in recent months.

On Monday night, a 77-year-old visually impaired bachelor farmer was terrorised by a gang who held a knife to his throat and screamed at him, shortly after 8pm.

Three masked men broke into his home via a downstairs back window, armed with a stick and knife. They ‘pounced upon’ the terrified man and hit him ‘a few times’ with a stick over the head, ‘stunning him’, sources said. The raiders ‘mistakenly believed’ he had cash at his home.

He was ‘screamed at and abused’ by the men who kept shouting, ‘Where is the money?’ according to a source. When he was unable to hand over any money, two men ‘ransacked his home’ while the third held him downstairs at knifepoint and continued to make threats.

The three-man gang soon realised there was no cash at the farmhouse, in Kildangan, Tullamore, and fled in a car. Within minutes, the pensioner managed to alert a neighbour and gardaí were contacted.

He was treated in hospital for shock and injuries to his head and shoulders. Gardaí say the men spoke with ‘local accents’. All three men were about 5ft 6in in height, in their 20s and spoke with a local accent, the gardaí said. The recent break-ins come only two months after a brutal attack on 54year-old single farmer Richard McKelvey. He was dragged from his bed and beaten by a gang of four men at his home near Birr, Co. Offaly. He was left deeply traumatised by the attack and moved in his with his sister, Annette Meacle.

Last month, his sister said he was slowly returning to his old self. She said: ‘His confidence is taking a bit of time to come back, but like all countrymen, once you’re out in the fresh air you’ll get better. But the nights are different. He is staying with me. It is due to his courage and the courage and support of his neighbours in the local farming community that he is going back now doing a bit of herding and staying for a little while on his own and acclimatising himself.’

They grabbed her by her wrist and broke a door