Innocent salute led to man's shooting by panicking thieves

MS Anne Marie Hall (19) was on the school road with her niece and nephew, walking towards Saggart village in the mid morning sunshine. To her left were the foothills of the Dublin mountains. All around her were the lush fields of the Slade Valley.

A gold Volvo car carrying several men passed her as it left the village. Behind it came her brother, Thomas (26), on his motorcycle.

He sounded his horn and passed on after the Volvo. AnneMarie and her niece and nephew waved to him.

Down in the Spar supermarket on Main Street, the staff were on the telephone, calling gardai to inform them they had just been robbed, by four masked and armed men.

Armed with a sawn off shotgun, a hunting knife, a baton and possibly an air rifle, three men had burst into the shop while the fourth had waited outside in the car. It was 11.20 a.m.

"They were demanding money. They had the customers lying on the ground and had a gun to the head of one of the check out operators," an employee said. "We gave them the money. We're trained to hand it over.

The men took the money, a few thousand pounds, from the safe in the office at the back of the shop, rushed to their stolen car and sped off.

They took the school road, past Anne Marie and her niece and nephew, towards the Embankment pub.

When Thomas Hall sounded his horn the thieves heard and noticed him. They turned up a small road to their right, a narrow road leading to the Blessington Road.

Whether this was their intended route, or whether they took the turn to see if the motor cyclist would follow, is not known. Thomas Hall turned on to the same road, on his way to his parents' home.

"I suppose they must have panicked," said Insp John Murphy, referring to the criminals. "But he was not following them. He was just unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The criminals stopped their car. They shot Mr Hall in the head with the shotgun as he came up behind them on his motorcycle, then abandoned their car and took to the fields of Slade Valley. Thomas Hall's crash helmet probably saved his life.

The young man walked to his family home. An ambulance took him to Dublin's Eye and Ear Hospital in Adelaide Road. A neighbour who spoke by telephone to Mrs Ann Hall said she was "relieved".

"It was over and Thomas was all right. He just had a pellet wound to the face. Thank God, we could have had a murder in the district," the neighbour said.

Gardai launched an intensive search in which two Air Corps helicopters took part. But by 2.30 p.m. Insp Murphy said the criminals had no doubt escaped. They might have had a second getaway car in the area, he said.

Ms Anne Marie Hall said her brother was "okay".

"He was wearing his helmet and it deflected the pellets. He was just injured above the eye. The ambulance men said the raiders had aimed for his head."

But a hospital spokeswoman said he had sustained a serious injury to his left eye.

He will be going in for emergency surgery this evening," she said. Later last night after a one hour operation he was said to be satisfactory.