Baby lucky to escape injury after thugs pelt rocks through car window

The reckless attack is just the latest in a long line of incidents where young thugs have thrown rocks and stones at cars from the railway bridge on Childers Road in Limerick.

Nikola Radojcic, who lives in Ballyneety around 10km from the city, told the Sunday World that he was driving with his 11-month-old daughter when the young gang threw rocks and stones at his car around 10.30pm last Friday.

One of the rocks smashed his windscreen and another smashed through a side window in the car leaving his infant daughter covered in glass in her baby seat.

Thankfully, Nikola and his daughter escaped without any injury but he said had the rock hit her in the head the consequences could have been dire.

“You can see the amount of glass around the child’s car seat. I checked to see if she had any cuts or blood or anything and thankfully she didn’t. Imagine that got in her eyes or she swallowed some or worse if the brick hit her in the head.

“She’s under two so her skull hasn’t fully formed. Her head is basically open,” Nikola told the Sunday World. “It could have been much worse.”

The bridge has become so notorious for such incidents that Irish Rail installed higher fencing to try and stop the vicious young thugs from accessing it to throw stones.

However, gardai have been forced to step up patrols in the area after a string of incidents last weekend, including the attack on Nikola’s car.

He told the Sunday World that he believes the youths involved range in age from about 10 to their early teens.

Nikola doesn’t think some of the young thugs realise the consequences of what could happen when they carry out the attacks.

He said he had heard gardai had previously approached the mother of one of the youths believed to have been involved in similar incidents.

“I heard they knew who one of the kids involved was and the garda went to talk to their mother but she didn’t care at all. She didn’t want to talk to the garda at all,” said Nikola.

“He’s only a child but if that is his mother’s attitude, it’s not good. That’s a much deeper issue.”

Nikola said he contacted gardai about it and they told him they weren’t going to call to the scene but instead advised him to travel to the Garda station himself to make a complaint.

He said he had to get someone to pick up his daughter before he went into the Roxboro Road garda station to make his complaint.

Gardai received several other reports from motorists over the weekend that they had been targeted in similar attacks at the same spot, including four in the space of an hour on Saturday.

Nikola said it has been happening for years.

“It’s been going on for years. I knew it was happening there but didn’t think it would happen to me.

“I’ve come up to that bridge before and seen 10 different cars all pulled in with their hazard lights on because rocks has been thrown. That was just on one occasion.”