Gang 'targets son of prison officer'

"DAD their going to kill me because of you". That was the chilling message kidnappers sent to a prison officer in Limerick after they abducted his son.

The attack on the 22-year-old, who was beaten after being bundled into a car on the Ennis Road early on Friday morning, is part of an ongoing campaign of intimidation against prison officers. It is believed the man was deliberately targeted because his father was a prison officer.

Eugene Dennehy, deputy general secretary of the Prison Officers' Association (POA), said during the abduction, the man's attackers rang his father using the youth's mobile phone.