'A bit of ket... no point in lying': Student found in possession of drugs in Limerick city

A STUDENT who admitted to gardaí that he had taken “a bit of ket” and consumed up to 14 pints of alcohol on the night in question was found to be in possession of ecstasy and cocaine as seen on RTÉ's documentary On The Beat. The drugs were seized following a search and charges are pending following analysis of the confiscated drugs. 

The young student told gardai that there was no point in lying to them.

In the documentary, Garda Aidan Coffey said that drug use on the college scene is "massive."

"Another side of it is they don't know what's mixed with it, what they're actually taking. It could be life-changing for a family overnight, and we've seen incidents like that."

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The documentary also showed a young male was also charged with several offences following an attempt to steal a motorbike on the north side of the city.

The owner of the motorbike approached the criminals and the lock of his bike was cut and he was beaten with it.

The gardai got a warrant for the house of one of the suspects involved in the violent attack. He already had a litany of charges against him in relation to unauthorised taking of vehicles and his DNA was found inside three robbed cars The main objective of the operation was to seize evidence relating to the cases the gardai were investigating.

The gardai found the clothes worn during the crime during the search of a property.

Although there has been a decrease in reported unauthorized takings of vehicles in Limerick, it's still the third worst affected city for car thefts after Dublin and Cork.

The RTÉ programme showed that late at night in Limerick city gardai Katie Forde and Dave McMahon happened upon a group of people whose car had just been stolen from the forecourt of a petrol station.

Sergeant Rob Sheehy said there's a group of up to 15 youngsters aged between 12 to 16 stealing cars.

"You can see it on some of their social media pages, they're showing themselves with balaclavas and gloves, taking the cars, driving the cars on the wrong side of the road and racing each other. They see it as entertainment. We've had had a number of serious incidents regarding members of the public being rammed off the road, causing serious injury."

"They're probably starting at around 10, up to 15, 16. There's a long process in initially getting permission to bring them before the courts, and an even longer one to prosecute them in court," added Sgt Sheehy.

In an effort to thwart the perpetrators carrying out the car thefts, Sergeant Sheehy and his specialist unit were tasked under Operation Croí to detain the main players involved.

Sgt Sheehy said Operation Croí was a task force set up in the city centre to tackle street crime, thefts, burglaries and drug offenses. "It's like a clean up operation, really. Housekeeping. Everyone targeted will be known to us. We target who we believe to be most appropriate at the time, who was most wanted for charges, for example and we bring them in pro rata if we can."