AN 88-YEAR-old man was viciously attacked in his home yesterday afternoon in Sligo town.
It happened as gardaí were already seeking criminals involved in two earlier separate attacks near two different footbridges that cross the Garavogue river.
Hughie Harte was knocked to the ground and robbed shortly after midday just minutes away from where a nurse was attacked on her way to work the day before.
Gardaí said he was attacked by a man wearing a balaclava who burst into his home through the back door at Abbeyville Park. Detectives said they were trying to establish if there was a second man in the attack.
Mr Harte was knocked to the ground, sustaining a cut arm, and robbed of a large sum from his wallet. He was taken to Sligo General Hospital. Officials there said last night Mr Harte’s injuries were still being assessed but he was “stable”. The attack happened close to the home of a 30-year-old nurse who was “mugged” on Thursday morning by two hooded men on her way to work.
An investigating detective said: “It’s too early to say if the two incidents were connected. But we’re not dismissing the prospect, either.” The nurse was attacked on her way to work in the hospital after she crossed a pedestrian bridge in the town on Thursday morning at 7.30am. Two hooded men, believed to be in their early 20s, threatened her as she arrived on the hospital side of the footwalk from Riverside.
A Garda investigator said: “She was not hurt but she was terribly frightened as the men threatened her and she handed over her handbag with mostly personal belongings. We are following a definite line of inquiry.”
Less than 14 hours after the attack on the nurse, a 49-year-old father of three from the Garavogue area of the town but recently living in hostels, was assaulted close to another pedestrian bridge that links Stephen Street car park with Rockwood Parade, beside Bridge Street.
Eye-witnesses said the man, John “Gerry” Goodwin, a former construction worker and native of Garrison, Co Fermanagh, was struck in an assault when a dispute arose with another man and was seriously hurt in the attack on Thursday night at 9.30pm.
He was rushed by ambulance to Sligo General Hospital and later transferred to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin where his condition was described as “serious but stable”.
The Mayor of Sligo Matt Lyons last night said so many assaults so close together especially after the murder of 60-year-old Cyril Moran less than two weeks ago, was very worrying for the community.