A LIMERICK taxi driver has been hailed as a hero after he apprehended a group of thieves who stole a woman’s handbag in the city.
The woman was getting into her car outside Hodkinson’s Decorators shop on Henry Street at approximately 2:30pm on Friday January 31 when two men approached her and snatched her handbag.
Three men, all non-nationals, saw the theft. One of them was driving a taxi van and shouted “stop them” before giving chase. Another motorist, a man in an An Post van, also followed the thieves along Clontarf Place and O’Connell Avenue.
Within minutes, both vehicles returned to the lady’s car at Hodkinson’s Decorators, the taxi van driver reporting that he had apprehended the thieves before returning the handbag to the lady.
The woman shook hands with the two drivers who followed the thieves and offered to buy them a drink to express her gratitude, but both men declined the offer, telling her that they were glad just to help reunite her with the handbag.
She also extended her thanks to the two non-nationals who were with the taxi van driver and to a man and a lady from Hodkinson’s Decorators who had sounded their car horns prior to the theft in an attempt to warn her of the thieves’ presence.
