Gardai in Carlow are investigating an incident in which a young woman was abducted from her bed by two men, taken to the grounds of a school and sexually assaulted.
The woman awoke to find her assailants in the bedroom of her rented flat close to the centre of Carlow. She was taken from her flat between 12.30 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Saturday and held at knifepoint during the assault.
The victim told gardai that she was brought to the end of Granby Row, close to the Institute of Technology. The men held her there for some time before bringing her to the Riverside housing estate and onto Hanover Road. She was then led to the grounds of the Church of Ireland National School on Green Road, where one of the men became nervous when a car turned in to an adjacent road and fled the scene.
The woman was then dragged into a shed in the school grounds by the second man and sexually assaulted. Some time later she was led across the Institute of Technology campus to a nearby petrol station, where her attacker purchased cigarettes.
The woman tried in vain to alert another customer to the situation and gardai are appealing for this witness to come forward. She was eventually released on the main Kilkenny road.
Both men were in their 20s. One is described as being 5ft 9in tall, with short dirty brown hair and a distinctive dimple on his chin. He was unshaven and wore dark jeans and a blue hooded jacket. The second man had a strong local accent and was 5ft 7in tall, very thin, and wore a bomber jacket.