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\n multiple TikToks feature the family’s car.\n<\/p>\n
A LIMERICK FAMILY whose stolen car featured in the social media posts of one of the boys who died in the M9 crash on Sunday has said that garda\u00ed told them TikTok videos rarely stand up as evidence in court, and as a result little could be done.<\/p>\n
Peter\u2019s daughter\u2019s car was stolen on the afternoon of 27 December last year, from where it was parked in a housing estate on the southern side of Limerick.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The vehicle was a Toyota Vitz \u2013 one of the Japanese import cars that have been targeted in the recent spate of car thefts in Ireland.<\/p>\n
He says that he showed garda\u00ed videos from multiple TikTok accounts in which his daughter\u2019s car was visible, including its licence plate, which appeared to be owned by a number of identifiable teenage boys, including Kamil Pustkowski, one of the five boys who died in the crash on the M9 on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed said that a suspect was never identified in relation to the incident so no investigation \u201ccan be progressed\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Former Garda Commissioner Patrick Leahy has said that a \u201cstatement of intent\u201d now needs to be made by the government which outlines necessary legislative changes and a multi-agency action plan that will change how joyriding gangs, reckless driving, and social media clips of illegal acts are treated going forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cRegardless of what these firms say about their policies, it should be the case that it is illegal for them to host posts that showcase stolen vehicles or show thefts in action, or reckless driving like we\u2019ve seen,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Leahy added that the government needs to \u201ctake the power back\u201d from social media companies, and also needs to crack down on those who encourage illegal acts in comment sections.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added that a special operation was put in place to tackle an epidemic of car thefts at the time, but that with the role of social media meaning that those participating can compete online, today\u2019s landscape is different.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Leahy said that in his view an examination is needed into the \u201cevidential value\u201d of TikTok videos when it comes to prosecuting people for the crimes they portray, so garda\u00ed on the ground understand \u201cwhat additional evidence we would need to proceed with a prosecution\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added that this must be preceded by making sure that uploading the videos is itself an offence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Peter said that the theft itself was witnessed by someone who lived in the housing estate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was in the middle of the day, a guy jumped out of a car that pulled up and smashed the window, and shortly after the car was gone. She rang me once she\u2019d realised in a state of panic, and we called the garda\u00ed,\u201d he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Peter said that despite their home being less than a mile from Roxboro garda station, it took hours for the garda\u00ed to turn up, and that when they did arrive they informed the family that garda\u00ed were aware of cars being raced around Limerick that day.<\/p>\n
\n multiple TikToks feature the family’s car.\n<\/p>\n
That night the family found videos of the car being posted all over TikTok, including on Pustkowski\u2019s account.<\/p>\n
A post from an account with the name \u2018Kamil\u2019, which featured photos and videos the teenager was identifiable in, shows two teenagers wearing balaclavas perched on top of Peter\u2019s daughter\u2019s car, while another masked male is standing on top of another car, holding what appears to be a wrench in the air.<\/p>\n
The post is captioned: \u201cNo better crew\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pustkowski\u2019s post tags another boy who attended the same secondary as him, Mungret School. In a separate post from that account, Peter\u2019s daughter\u2019s car is also visible, while a caption put over a video reads: \u201cFuck the Police I\u2019ll dust them\u201d.<\/p>\n
A video from the account \u2018@limerickonthemap\u2019 shows boys sitting in two cars in the location where this family\u2019s car was parked, with one masked youth shown hot-wiring the vehicle.<\/p>\n
The family went to the garda\u00ed on the 30th and gave statements in relation to the social media posts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were told that garda\u00ed were aware of the posts, but that TikTok videos rarely stand up as evidence in court, and that the chances of there being a conviction and a bed available at Oberstown at the same time were extremely slim. We didn\u2019t hear from them again after that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Peter explained that he considered going to the houses of one of the boys himself \u2013 as he knew where they lived \u2013 but that garda\u00ed advised him against doing so.<\/p>\n
He was also aware that one of the accounts tagged in the videos featuring his daughter\u2019s car had a family connection to a well known Limerick crime figure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t want to put my daughter at risk. But I followed the accounts since then, and it\u2019s clear that some of these kids were doing this every week, and in particular Kamil Pustkowski was very active, I couldn\u2019t believe how much evidence there was of cars being stolen and that they were able to keep doing it without repercussions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The car turned up written off and abandoned a few days later.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
When they saw the news that Pustkowski had died in the M9 crash, believed to have been stolen, they felt \u201csad\u201d, but also angered that more couldn\u2019t be done to tackle this behaviour sooner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn many ways someone getting hurt was inevitable. It\u2019s very sad. The resources aren\u2019t there for garda\u00ed to be able to prosecute this kind of behaviour when it comes to juveniles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added that Pustkowski appeared to have had a \u201chard life\u201d and had dropped out of school after the Junior Cert.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Journal understands that multiple teenage boys who took part in car thefts carried out by these gangs have faced prosecution and have served time in Oberstown.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A LIMERICK FAMILY whose stolen car featured in the social media posts of one of the boys who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[956,9,10,268207,18,13,14,6,19,17,274737,11,12,1844,271820,15,16,5,1214,1150,7,8],"class_list":["post-650030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-car-theft","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kamil-pustkowski","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-limerick","tag-m9-crash","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-the","tag-tiktok","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117136751539383282","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}