Post office raided with child inside
FIVE men were being quizzed by gardaí last night after a terrifying armed raid on a post office while a woman and a five-year-old girl were inside.
Two female staff, along with the woman and child, were said to be very shaken yesterday and the post office at the Cleaboy Shopping Centre, in Waterford closed until today.
Eyewitness reports said that three masked men escaped in a car waiting nearby. Officers arrested the men in a field at Carriganore at about noon yesterday, some 50 minutes after the robbery. The area is 3km away from the scene of the raid in Cleaboy.
A sum of cash was taken in the raid, while one of the raiders was brandishing a sawn-off shotgun.
A red Renault Laguna understood to have been used in the raid was discovered burnt out in a wooded area nearby, according to gardaí. A raid had been carried out on an Applegreen filling station nearby on Monday, though it is not known if the incidents are connected.
Gerry Smith, a maintenance worker with Ardkeen Sales Ltd, the company that owns the business park where yesterday’s raid occurred, was working just yards away from the incident, and heard ‘a loud bang’ coming from the post office. However, no shots were discharged in the raid and no injuries were reported, according to gardaí.
Mr Smith said: ‘They were very shaken inside. You could see them.
‘I just heard some banging noise from the post office, around that area. And then I saw three men running out, and jumping into a car and then taking off. They were covered; their heads were covered anyway. It was a serious situation. The staff in the post office were very shaken. I went up to ask them were they alright. I didn’t go into the post office; I just went to the door.’
John Enright, manager of Londis at Cleaboy, said: ‘I believe there was a shotgun used in the raid. And I suppose what was more terrifying is that there was a woman there with a five-year-old child.’
Gardaí last night appealed for anyone ‘in the vicinity of the post office prior to the robbery, after the robbery as they left the scene, or in the vicinity of the burnt-out car’ to contact them in Waterford on 051 305300, or on the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111.
They also appealed for anyone who may have been driving in the area ‘with dashcams during the relevant time’, or who ‘may have CCTV footage from commercial premises’, to contact them.