Man dies after botched raid on garage

ONE man is dead, another is fighting for his life and a third is on the run after a gang of robbers crashed their getaway vehicle following a raid that netted them just €250.

The car went off the road close to the M1 motorway, killing one raider and seriously injuring a second.

They had already robbed a filling station and rammed a garda patrol car before the single vehicle accident.

Gardaí in Drogheda are leading the hunt for the fugitive, who escaped from the wreck and then stole the car of a passerby, a nurse who had stopped to help and was tending to the dying and injured men.

The identities of all three are known to gardaí, but the name of the dead man had not been released by late yesterday evening.

The drama began shortly after 7am yesterday at a garage at Broomfield on the Carrickmacross to Castleblaney road in Monaghan.

The three-man gang from Dublin pulled up in a jeep at McCaughey's filling station and supermarket at Broomfield. They bought €7 of fuel for the stolen vehicle, then produced an iron bar and forced their way into the 24-hour outlet.

Maureen McCaughey, a daughter of the owner, Raymond McCaughey, along with another female assistant Michale O'Reilly struggled with one of the gang members, who grabbed a safe and also attempted to take cash from the office area.

The raiders managed to steal around €250 from the safe.

The gang fled south towards Dublin as gardaí at Carrickmacross were alerted and a description of the vehicle circulated.

It was intercepted at Aclint, on the N2 Carrickmacross to Castleblaney road.

The jeep rammed the garda patrol car badly damaging the vehicle.

The jeep was also damaged in the impact, but the gang continued at high speed through Carrickmacross towards Ardee.

The gang then used the jeep to force another car to a halt. They assaulted the driver, hitting him several times about the head before stealing his Nissan Primera and fleeing, again at high speed.

The hijacked Primera crashed at a roundabout near the Dublin motorway.

No other vehicle was involved and they were not being chased by gardaí at the time, a garda spokesperson said.

One of the men managed to crawl from the wreckage. He then hijacked a Ford Fiesta driven by a woman who had stopped to help. It is believed she called the emergency services.

Garda inspector Jim Marks, Carrickmacross, said: “They were obviously on their way back to the capital when the crash happened. A full investigation is continuing.”