The quick thinking of Tubbercurry residents sees thieves abandoning a stolen cash machine.
Quick thinking by local people in Sligo left a gang of thieves empty handed. At around 5:00 am, robbers using a mechanical digger pulled an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) out of the wall of the Bank of Ireland branch in Tubbercurry. The gang loaded the cash machine onto a trailer pulled by a white van and made their escape. The stolen digger was left at the scene of the crime.
Residents on Teeling Street were woken by the noise of the bank raid. Solicitor Eamonn Gallagher lives next door to the bank and his wife alerted him to the disturbance outside,
She kicked me out of the bed, and I took a look out myself and saw a JCB and some activity, so I just literally rang the guards.
An Garda Síochána reacted promptly and a local man followed the thieves for some distance. Within half an hour gardaí found the trailer, van and the unopened ATM abandoned about 15 kilometres away.
As a result of the robbery Thomas Normanly says,
People around here are in deep shock; they can’t understand what has happened in this little town of Tubbercurry.
Auctioneer Roger McCarrick compliments his neighbours and the gardaí on their swift actions,
Criminality like this will not be tolerated.
Tubbercurry resident Angela Brennan is shocked by the incident but is delighted the thieves did not get away with the money,
They must be sickened this morning.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 29 January 2014. The reporter is Eileen Magnier.
