Girl injured by stolen car driven by 13 year old

A NINE year old girl suffered serious leg injuries when she was knocked down by a stolen car driven by a 13 year old boy in west Dublin yesterday.

Aine Shiels, who was on roller skates, was playing on the footpath outside her house at Raheen Park, Ballyfermot, when the accident happened at 3.20 p.m. The boy driving the car, a stolen Mazda 121, apparently attempted to ram it past a four foot concrete bollard nearby.

Gardai arrested a boy at his home and he was taken to Ballyfermot Garda station. A file is expected to be sent to the DPP on the boy and a second youth, arrested in the area in a follow up operation.

Gardai said the car had been used in a robbery earlier yesterday and abandoned. It is under stood that two boys found the car, but only one was in the car at the time of the incident.

Aine was taken to Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, where she underwent surgery last night. A hospital spokeswoman said that following the operation she was "very ill but stable".

Her mother, Ms Gwen Shiels, said the doctors told her that her daughter's hip had been broken and one leg had been crushed.

Ms Shiels said the doctors had said her daughter was lucky she was wearing roller skates as the car would have hit her vital said they thought the boy was trying to drive the car through a gap between the bollard and the wall of the local park, The Lawns.

The car had been stolen from outside the Purty Kitchen in Dun Laoghaire earlier yesterday. Gardai believe it was stolen by, another youth or gang of youths, used in a robbery and abandoned.

Locals said the car had been used by a gang earlier to rob an elderly woman on the road. Another man said the boy had been seen driving the car in the Gallanstown area. "The kids said he drove slowly and then took a run at the bollard," Ms Shiels said.

A local garda said the road was a favourite speed circuit for car thieves, and Dublin Corporation had responded by blocking off one end of the road with concrete bollards.