Long legs of the law win six-mile chase

WHILE you might not be able to evade the long arm of the law, in Cork, it is the long legs of the law you can’t escape.

Three young men made that discovery on Wednesday after crashing a stolen taxi and taking to the fields only to be chased by four gardaí. After a six-mile hour-and-a-half cross-country chase on foot through farm, bog and woodlands, they finally caught the offenders. Mallow-based Inspector Senan Ryan said yesterday: “They obviously fancied their chances. But they didn’t realise there were four young and very fit gardaí in hot pursuit.

“Our boys just weren’t going to give up until these three men were apprehended — it was as simple as that.”

The long slog, which ended with the youths being detained, started when a taxi was stolen in Midleton in east Cork. The offenders drove it along a country road before crashing it some miles away, near the village of Burnfort, close to Mallow.

The taxi, according to gardaí, was a write-off but the men escaped unharmed.

However, the same culprits then reportedly tried to break into a nearby house in an attempt to steal the keys for a parked car. But the owner disturbed them and contacted gardaí in Mallow. When the trio saw the gardaí arriving, they took off through the fields, confident they could outrun their pursuers.

The chase, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, lasted an hour-and-a-half across gruelling terrain. Gardaí reportedly kept the youths in their sights throughout the pursuit.

When the youths made it to Rathduff — about half-way between Cork and Mallow — they must have thought they had a chance to get away but, instead, the exhausted trio ran right into the path of a patrol car. They were immediately arrested and taken to Mallow Garda Station for questioning.

The men, all in their late teens, were later released without charge and a file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.