A would-be car thief in Drogheda, Co. Louth, knocked himself out with a brick as he attempted to smash a car window in February 2015. He fast become an internet sensation.
The aptly named ‘A Thick with a Brick’ became a main contender for Ireland’s dumbest criminal after he was found by the car’s owner, lying in a pool of his own blood. CCTV footage captured the moment the brick rebounded off the window and hit him in the face.
Gerry Brady, the owner of the Mercedes E Coupe captured in the CCTV footage and owner of the nearby Pheasant Pub in Drogheda, told Independent.ie how he found the man lying on the ground with injuries to his face as he left work around 1 a.m. Brady’s initial reaction was that the man had been attacked while his girlfriend suggested that it may have been a hit and run.
The haphazard criminal initially claimed that he had been attacked by a friend and was reluctant to call the police or an ambulance when it was suggested. It wasn’t until damage was noticed on Brady’s girlfriend’s car that the pair realized that the thief's story was inaccurate.
Events took a further twist when the thief then began to blackmail Brady. Brady tells how the thief threatened to burn down his pub and to tell the police that it was Brady who beat him up if he wasn’t given €50 for a taxi.
Backing away from the man, Brady and his girlfriend retreated to a nearby petrol station, where they called the police. The thief was still claiming that Brady had attacked him when he was picked up before CCTV footage of the incident was brought to the station.
CCTV footage from Brady’s pub shows the incident clearly as the man first attempts to break the car window using a small stone. Failing in this attempt twice, the thief turns to Brady’s girlfriend’s car, succeeding in smashing a window and emptying the glove compartment before returning to the Mercedes. Taking a concrete block, he makes a third attempt at smashing the windscreen. Following a run at the window and tossing the block, however, it clearly rebounds off the window, hitting him in the face and knocking him off his feet.
*Originally published in February 2015.
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