Gardai were yesterday investigating a break-in in which a businessman was beaten up with a baseball bat and his daughter had a pistol held to her head by three masked men. Shortly after 9 p.m. on Saturday the gang broke into the house at Spur Hill on the outskirts of Cork city and surprised the man's daughter who is in her 20s. The gang held a pistol - possibly an imitation weapon - to her head and demanded money. They tied her up for over an hour as they waited for her father to return. The father returned around midnight and was surprised by the gang who demanded he open a safe in the house.
When he opened the safe and they found no money, they hit him with the baseball bat, fracturing his knee and arm.
The three-man gang escaped in the man's car which was still missing yesterday evening.