An eight-year-old child who was abducted near her home in Moate, Co Westmeath, yesterday, was found last night after garda∅ mounted checkpoints in the midlands.
However, parents were urged to remain vigilant until the abductor had been found.
Mary Joyce, from Knockdomny, a few miles from Moate, was seen being bundled into a green Toyota Corolla car by a man in his 30s shortly after 4 p.m. She escaped her abductor shortly before 9 p.m., hiding in a field and making her way through undergrowth to a road close to where she had been snatched. She was picked up by a cousin, who was searching for her with a journalist from the Star newspaper, a Garda spokesman said. They handed her to detectives at a checkpoint in Moate.
The child was traumatised by her experience and would be having a medical examination.
The investigation into the child's abduction is continuing. No arrests had been made last night. Garda∅ said she did not know her abductor.
Her parents, Mr Paul Joyce and Ms Mary Maughan, contacted garda∅ when Mary did not return from school.
They made an emotional appeal for her safe return on RT╔ news last night, just moments before the word came through that their daughter had been found.
It is believed she got off a school bus at a nearby railway crossing shortly after 4 p.m. and began to walk the short distance to her home in Knockdomny.
A neighbour of the child saw a man, who had been in a parked car at the side of the road, place the child into the car before driving off. It was not clear in which direction he drove.
The man, described as being in his 30s, and about 5 feet 4 inches, was driving a green Toyota saloon car with the letters OY in the registration.
He had short black hair, was clean-shaven and was wearing a blue top.
His car was an "old-style" Corolla, and not the latest model, according to a Garda spokeswoman. Supt Kevin Donohoe, of Athlone, who is in charge of the investigation, asked anyone with information to contact the Garda at Athlone .
Ms Marie Danaswamy, president of the National Parents Council, urged that children be collected from school by a parent or someone known to them,
"I don't want to panic anyone, but children are vulnerable and innocent. I don't know who would do such a dreadful thing to any child, but at the same time we have to recognise that they are out there and we can't brush it under the carpet."