KEN FOY CRIME CORRESPONDENT – 09 DECEMBER 2013 02:30 PM
A TEENAGER suffered serious injuries after he was abducted close to his home and taken to the Phoenix Park where he was attacked with baseball bats.
The savage abduction and beating happened less than three hours before a 25-year-old man was shot in the leg in a separate incident in Coolock on the capital's northside.
In the first incident at 7.15pm yesterday, Daryl Doherty (18) was abducted by two men in Cherry Orchard Court in Ballyfermot, bundled into the back of a car and driven to the Phoenix Park in the west of the city.
Mr Doherty was stripped, tied up and restrained in a car at a location at Military Road.
He was beaten with baseball bats and sustained serious injuries during the incident and was being treated in hospital this morning.
Mr Doherty managed to escape from his attackers and gardai were alerted after he flagged down a passing motorist in the park.
The crime scene was sealed off this morning and a garda forensic team was conducting an examination.
No arrests have been made and gardai are still trying to seek a motive for the abduction and assault.
In a separate case, a 25-year-old man named locally as Paul Norton was shot in the lower leg at the Cromcastle Court estate in Coolock at around 10pm yesterday, suffering minor injuries to his leg.
The gunman left the scene in a white Volkswagen Golf and the victim sustained minor injuries to his lower leg.
Sources say that while garda investigations are at an early stage into the Coolock shooting, detectives are looking at whether it was carried out by a dissident republican faction who are linked to slain Real IRA figure Alan Ryan.
EXTORTION
Last week, the Herald revealed that the mob have increased a campaign of extortion and intimidation in north Dublin.
Some of those involved in the extortion drive are linked to the Irish Republican Voice movement which was formed earlier this year and who are suspected of being already involved in a number of punishment shootings, including two last week when two brothers were shot on consecutive nights.
Both were shot in the right leg, one in the upper and the other in the lower part of the leg, and were left with non life-threatening injuries.
One resident in the Cromcastle Court complex told the Herald this morning that he didn't hear the gun being fired last night, but that he wasn't surprised to wake up to the hear the news that there had been another shooting in his local area. He said: "I wasn't surprised. It's an ongoing feud going on here between some of the residents.
