Slippery customer nabbed

A RUNAWAY snake spent a night in a Garda station after a late-night tangle with college students.

The four-foot orange and brown non-venomous reptile was found slithering in the back garden of a house on Cork’s Magazine Road by a female college student just before 10pm on Thursday night. She contacted Bishopstown Garda Station who dispatched their best snake wranglers — gardas Peter Nolan, Brendan Hanafin and Margaret Ryan. They found the suspect in tall grass towards the rear of the garden. But a Garda spokesman said it resisted arrest and didn’t want to leave. “He was a real slippery customer, long and thin. It took the three of them to bring him in,” the spokesman said.

The gardaí placed it in a bag and transported it back to the garda station where it spent the night in an outhouse. It was not placed under arrest.