Elderly Hill of Down lady held as thugs ransack home

Ballivor Gardai are investigating a burglary at the home of an elderly lady near Killyon where two men forced their way into her house, one of whom restrained her while the other searched the house. At around 7pm on Thursday 27th August, two men entered the woman's home at Clondalee, Hill of Down, one held her back while the other searched the house but it is understood that nothing was taken. The woman was shocked and shaken but was otherwise uninjured. Gardai are appealing to people in the wider Killyon and Ballivor area to contact them if they noticed suspicious activity in the area involving two Northern-registered vehicles last Wednesday or Thursday. A red saloon car and a black estate car were both seen acting suspiciously in the area on the Wednesday, around the time another house was broken into. Gardai are asking that any sightings of these vehicles in the area be reported to them. A Garda patrol car was rammed when it responded to an alarm call during a raid at a filling station in Oldcastle in the early hours of Friday last. Three masked men were at the premises when the Gardai arrived at around 3am after the alarm had been activated. They had already broken into the premises and taken a small sum of money from a drawer, but were unable to access the safe. The raiders, who made their getaway in a black Volvo car, rammed the patrol car and drove off at speed. False number plates fell from the vehicle as it made its getaway, revealing an English registration underneath. CCTV footage of the incident is being examined and a Garda technical examination took place at the scene. Gardai believe the robbery was the work of a highly-organised gang and that the robbery was linked to another raid in Oldcastle in the early hours of last Thursday morning. In that incident, raiders broke into a filling station on the Castlepollard Road and stole a large quantity of cigarettes. Meanwhile another major quantity of drugs was taken out of circulation in the Navan area after €100,000 of cannabis resin was recovered in a field at Balreask on the Trim Road last Thursday. A bag containing 65 nine-ounce bars of cannabis resin was discovered in a ditch by a workman. It is not known how long the drugs were there and they have been sent for technical analysis. Gardai say there is no evidence that these drugs were linked to three major seizures in the Navan area in recent weeks. On Saturday 15th August, Gardai recovered an estimated €400,000 of the cannabis resin at two locations in Navan. Gardai were on patrol when they noticed a number of people acting suspiciously at Old Balreask, Navan. They searched the area of open ground and found a package containing approximately €80,000 of cannabis resin. A short time later, Gardai received a report that a car was driving dangerously and that something had been thrown from the window of the vehicle into a field at Academy Street. When Gardai searched the area behind the wall where the item was thrown, they found another number of packages, containing drugs worth in the region of €320,000. A week later, on Saturday 22nd August, a further discovery of cannabis resin worth an estimated €80,000 was made which Gardai believe was linked to the previous week's find.