Garda rescued from knifeman

IN a dramatic operation, heavily armed detectives rescued a uniformed female colleague from the grips of a violent criminal as he pressed a knife to her throat and threatened to slit it.

The man freed the young garda and dropped the knife when armed members of the Emergency Response Unit stormed the scene.

The events occurred on Tuesday night when two female gardaí responded to a report of a break-in at an apartment in the Limerick city centre.

The man, in his 40s, grabbed one of the gardaí and pressed the blade of a long knife to her throat.

The man, a known violent criminal, had been in the process of ransacking the apartment.

Supt John Kerin said: “As the two gardaí tried to arrest him and put on handcuffs, he pulled a knife and put it to the throat of one garda and told her he would slit it if they did not go away.”

The other garda managed to alert Henry Street Garda Station on her radio and armed members of the Emergency Response Unit rushed to the scene and subdued the intruder.

The man, who is in his 40s, was arrested, taken to Henry Street Garda Station and is due in court.

He is a native of Dublin and travelled to Limerick in recent days.