Mother was ‘tossed into street’ after savage beating

A MOTHER was kidnapped and brought to a house to be beaten in a horrific assault that left her hospitalised with serious head injuries and potentially blinded.

The 48-year-old woman was abducted in the Dundalk area shortly before noon on Wednesday.

She was then brought to a house in one of the town’s most crimeridden estates and savagely attacked for a number of hours.

Once her kidnapper got her inside the house, the middle-aged woman was ‘beaten within an inch of her life with a blunt instrument’ by a well-known criminal and local drug dealer.

Bleeding heavily from the head, the woman was ‘essentially tossed on to the street’ after a couple of hours of being ‘tortured’ by this criminal, aged in his late 30s, sources said. The drug dealer’s girlfriend was also present and detectives are trying to establish whether she was involved in the crime.

The victim was subjected to the attack because she owed money to the dealer, after she claimed drugs she was minding on his behalf went missing.

This ‘enraged’ the criminal, a settled member of the Travelling community, who is heavily involved in crime.

The man was last night in custody after gardaí searched his home, and another house in the same estate.

Gardaí took the convicted criminal into custody late on Thursday after drugs were seized from him during these searches, in which a car was also seized by detectives.

While questioning him over possession of a substance, which is currently being analysed and is believed to be cocaine or MDMA, officers are now putting a series of questions to him over the attack on the 48-year-old woman.

As of last night, he had not been arrested on suspicion of this crime but gardaí are confident of ‘imminent developments’ in the case over the weekend.

After the victim was discovered bleeding heavily from the head on Wednesday afternoon having been left on the street, she was rushed to Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda.

But her head injuries were so significant that she was later transferred to Dublin’s Mater hospital.

Since then, the woman has been in a position to provide gardaí with a statement of complaint about the incident.

Sources say that one of her eyes is so badly damaged from the beating that medics suspect she may lose the sight in one of her eyes entirely.

A source said: ‘This was an incredibly violent and savage attack. The brutality of it is something we rarely see in this country. This criminal is dangerous and ruthless and was willing to essentially torture this woman within an inch of her life over a couple of thousand euro worth of missing drugs.’

It is understood that this criminal is behind a less serious assault on the 48-year-old woman in recent weeks over the loss of his drugs. It is also alleged that he had made verbal threats against her, ahead of Wednesday’s savage attack.

The suspect previously spent time behind bars for extortion after threats were made to murder a man and his family with a firearm.

Other members of the suspect’s family are also heavily involved in criminality and drug-dealing.

The victim in Wednesday’s incident is not considered a criminal, though she has a couple of minor theft convictions.

The married mother of grown-up children appears to have become ‘inexplicably’ entangled with the drug dealer, stashing and holding drugs on his behalf.

A source added: ‘She clearly got in over her head. You cannot lose drugs belonging to a man like that without paying it back. He wanted to send a message here that he is not to be crossed. He made his point very clearly and violently.’

‘She clearly got in over her head’