Hunt for gang who raided Navan pub

Gardai in Navan are hunting a three-man armed gang that threatened the life of a barman before robbing him in the early hours of Monday morning. Local detectives are not ruling out the possibility that the men who carried out the robbery may be the same trio who beat up and robbed a parish priest and a Chinese businessman last week in separate shocking incidents. After closing time and in the early hours of Monday morning, a barman was leaving the Teach na Teamhreach bar and restaurant on the Trim Road, Navan, when three armed and masked men attacked him. They forced the man to the ground outside the pub and then frog-marched him back to the door and forced him to disable the alarm and reopen the premises. The three threatened to shoot the man but he, however, only recalls that the trio had knives and does not remember seeing a gun during the terrifying experience. His attackers marched the barman back to the till and took several hundred euro from it before also stealing a cigarette machine and its contents. They then took the man's car keys and phone and locked him into an office area. Despite the gang spending nearly an hour in the building and talk of tying the barman up, they eventually just locked him in the room and fled. They piled the cash and the machine into the man's Toyota Corolla and drove off. The car was found burned out at Scurlogstown, Trim, at around 4.20am. At around the same time, the man forcibly freed himself from the office and rang Navan gardai. On Monday morning, gardai had sealed off the area and were conducting door-to-door enquiries in the area. Descriptions are vague with the three said to be of unremarkable average build and only slight variations in average height. One of the three wore a balaclava while the other two concealed their faces with hoodies, hats and scarves. Gardai are reviewing CCTV footage taken at the premises. Last week, popular Drumconrath parish priest, Fr Finian Connaughton, endured a terrifying ordeal following a burglary at his home during which he was tied up and threatened with a baseball bat in the early hours of Monday morning, 27th June. The incident at the parochial house in Drumconrath was one of a litany of aggravated robberies in the county recently perpetrated by three masked men, which included a brutal assault on a local restaurateur. In Drumconrath, three men threatened Fr Connaughton with a baseball bat after forcing their way into his home by a side window, shortly after he had gone to bed. The men, one of whom was armed with a hammer and another with a baseball bat, confronted the priest and forced him to open the safe. They got away with cash from the Sunday offertory collection. The raiders tied the priest's hands and feet with telephone wire before fleeing from the house. Fr Connaughton then managed to free himself and raised the alarm. In the early hours of Thursday morning, 23rd June, a Navan restaurateur was beaten and robbed by a three-man gang on his own doorstep in the Woodlands estate in Navan. He was set upon by a gang of three men who beat and punched him to the ground in front of his wife. They then set about attacking and robbing her of her handbag. The whole shocking incident lasted just moments and gardai are going by the bare minimum of descriptions. The three thugs are described as wearing dark clothes and they concealed their faces, with a mixture of scarves, hoods and hats, and all three are thought to be of medium height and build. Gardai are renewing their appeal for information on the three incidents and are not ruling out that the same three men could be responsible for the three separate incidents. Navan Garda Station can be contacted on (046) 902 1445.