A man has appealed for help in finding a car stolen from outside his family’s Dublin home, the loss of which has led to a “massive” and unwelcome routine change for his son who has special needs.
Gary Nolan said the family use the black 171 D Skoda Octavia, taken from outside their home in Whitehall on Saturday, March 14th, to bring David (23) to regular appointments.
The theft was partially captured by CCTV, with footage showing at least three people arriving into the area in another car before breaking into Nolan’s home and stealing his car from the driveway.
“They got into the house somehow and took the car key. It was my wife that discovered it because she was going to work that morning and noticed her handbag was missing,” Nolan said.
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“She went out to check to see if it was in the car, which was when she saw the car was gone.”
Nolan contacted gardaí, who took a statement. His wife’s purse was handed into Lucan Garda station on the other side of the city days later, but there has been no sign of the car.
He said the family must wait 28 days until the car is “deemed gone” for insurance purposes, “but in the meantime, we’re really stuck, because we have a young lad with special needs”.
David has “moderate to severe autism”, ADHD, anxiety and an intellectual disability.
“He goes to a day centre, hospital appointments, respite . . . We just need to bring him for drives because that’s his thing. He even had a playlist in the car which was unique to his taste, that suits him, so even that’s gone . . . It has impacted us quite badly,” Nolan said.
“There’s nothing we really can do. His day service are trying to arrange lifts to and from the house, but they’re having trouble getting that. We got him in today and we have tomorrow sorted. But after that we just don’t know.”
He added: “The word inconvenient doesn’t cover it when you’ve got somebody who really relies on it like this.”
Nolan said the theft has led to a “massive routine change” for David, who has been “just looking out the window” thinking someone is going to bring the car back.
“He doesn’t understand the concept of theft,” he added. “His car isn’t there because somebody took it, so he’s assuming somebody will bring it back, because why would somebody take something that’s not theirs? With his intellectual disability, he just doesn’t understand.”
Nolan said he was highlighting his family’s case because “we just really want the car back.”
He added that the car has “a little mark on the boot that might be distinguishing”.
“We’re just lost without it,” he said, adding that he was also worried about his insurance premium going up as a result of him having been “a victim of circumstance”.
“They’re a professional group clearly, because they didn’t even slow down on the camera footage, they just pulled straight up and did it within minutes. A woman not far from here in Santry only had her car stolen outside her home the other day as well,” he added.
“It’s just sickening.”
