Man held after web threat to kill children sparks school lockdown
The man, arrested yesterday afternoon, had made graphic threats to Irish children, saying he was going to target them because Irish people had 'p*ssed me off'. Pic: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin
The video, which was circulated online earlier this week, showed a man lying on a bed addressing the camera.
He said: 'Irish, I'm coming on top of you now. I'm gonna be slicing your babies, kids and you, good for everybody. Get ready, because you p*ssed me off.' Pic: Karl M Photography/Shutterstock
The video had been flagged multiple times on several social media websites but had not been removed.
A search conducted yesterday evening revealed that the video was still easily accessible online.
Scoil Mhuire, on the Ballyroan Road in Abbeyleix, Co. Laois, closed its doors as a precaution yesterday morning when it emerged that the man may be in the area.
An official Garda spokesman said officers investigating 'alleged threats shared online have arrested one male in Abbeyleix', adding that the man was 'detained at a Garda station in the Eastern Region'.
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'It was brutal,' recalls Ms Sergison, the shock still raw 11 years later. 'The waiter was passing me a pizza and I was taking in what I'd been told.' Her 59-year-old aunt lived nearly 10,000km away in Thabazimbi, South Africa. The pair were close, speaking on the phone every Sunday and exchanging emails. And now Ms Robinson had been found, raped and murdered, in the lodge she had bought and built up with her late Irish husband. Initially, it was thought to be a farm killing, but then it emerged that the 26-year-old gardener, Andrea Imbayarwo (then known as Andrew Ndlovu), had disappeared along with £1,400 (€1,600) that had been drawn from the bank to pay staff wages. With such an obvious suspect, Ms Sergison and her family expected his arrest and trial to be swift, but as days became weeks and months turned into years, any chance of justice seemed to slip away. She was driven by a desire for justice for the aunt she had shared a close bond with Catching Ms Robinson's murderer became something the South African authorities, the UK government and, eventually, even Ms Sergison's own family gave up on. Everyone, in fact, except Ms Sergison. She never quite stopped believing that it might be possible to bring him to justice. So began a quest that would eventually result in the man responsible being arrested. That he was finally caught was all thanks to Ms Sergison, who had single- handedly made contact with the main suspect, honeytrapping him into messaging with her on Facebook and ultimately leading the police to his whereabouts – all without ever visiting South Africa. How she managed to secure the conviction of Imbayarwo is the subject of a new documentary, The Facebook Honeytrap: Catching a Killer, available on Amazon Prime Video from July 27. She was driven by a desire for justice for the aunt she had always shared a close bond with, but the past 11 years have shown her how femicide still goes virtually unchallenged. In South Africa, an average of 153 rapes are reported and eight women are murdered every day. ADVERTISEMENT 'I think life is cheap there. It's accepted,' Ms Sergison said. 'Even when they find the men responsible, cases fall apart because the systems aren't robust enough. And then you start to read UN reports about femicide, rape and gender-based violence and they show that – right across the world – women have no value.' In 2002, after Ms Robinson met and married Irishman 'Robbie' Robinson – the love of her life – the couple bought a game park near the Botswana border. While she and Mr Robinson had been concerned about violence, the life they opted for was a long way from any of South Africa's volatile townships. They had CCTV and two Alsatians that were trained to protect. And life was good until Mr Robinson was diagnosed with cancer. In 2012, he died at home in Belfast with Ms Robinson by his side. Afterwards, still deep in grief, she made the decision to return to South Africa to continue running the 30-guest lodge near Limpopo. By the time Ms Sergison took that call in 2014, Ms Robinson was in the process of selling the place with the intention of returning to the UK. There were three or four attempts at extradition, but the paperwork was always wrong On the day of her murder, she missed an appointment about the sale. The same day, Imbayarwo fled to his native Zimbabwe. There followed a painfully inadequate attempt to extradite him. 'There were three or four attempts at extradition, but the paperwork was always wrong in some way. They'd tell me it was getting done, but it wasn't. The authorities were so incompetent,' Ms Sergison said. Her dealings with the British Foreign Office were equally frustrating. 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