Athlone publican 'still hears screams of the young girls'
A publican who chased down a suspected sex attacker has said he still hears the screams of two young girls who were allegedly attacked.
The 49-year-old, who asked not to be named, said he joined the search for the girls when they went missing from the children’s party, and held a suspect down until gardaí arrived.
“What had me was the screams,” he said. “I can hear them ever since in my head. They were bad.”
The man said people were searching for the girls for up to 45 minutes before they appeared from the rear of the apartment in the Athlone housing estate.
Around the same time, he spotted a man who did not live in the estate walking out of an apartment alone carrying a bottle of vodka and bag of alcohol.
Three men were arrested after the girls were found. Two men were released without charge and one man remains in Garda custody.
“People were roaring and shouting that he had the girls in the apartment,” the publican said.
He had been in a car traversing streets in the estate trying to track the two missing young girls.
“He was almost on the main road when I drove up and stopped him,” he said.
“He tried to hit me with the bottle of vodka. Myself and another friend held him down on the ground and we called the gardaí.
“I asked him what he did with the kids. He said to me: ’I didn’t do anything to them’.”
The man said that the man he apprehended denied harming the girls.
It is understood two men were found in the house where the alleged attacks took place but were sleeping after drinking.
Locals in the estate said they were unsure exactly what had happened until one of the girl’s fathers took a phone call from his wife at the scene where a suspect had been stopped.
“The dad had to be held back,” the publican said.
“The father of the child was losing the plot shouting: ’What did you do to my baby?’
“I do not want to be a hero,” added the publican. “I didn’t do anything that no one else would have done.”
