A Facebook message went viral over the weekend after a woman posted about how her friend thought she was approached by a man while she was out jogging on Sunday afternoon in Stabanon, Co. Louth.
We’ve blocked the poster’s name for privacy reasons, but the message stated:
“STRANGER DANGER – JOGGERS AND WALKERS BE AWARE
A neighbour, whilst out jogging near Roodstown Castle between N52 and Stabannon was approached by a very suspicious African man in a black compact car this afternoon. He brought his car to a crawl and began to ask her questions in a very uncomfortable way. She ran to the nearest house and he reversed his car towards the castle but stopped to watch her.”
This message has been shared hundreds of times on Facebook and it’s understood that the local Gardai in Ardee, Co. Louth are aware of the incident.
However we received a message from the original poster and did some investigations of our own and it has transpired that the “suspicious” man in question is actually a new Parish Priest who was trying to stop the woman to ask her for directions.
The Priest is said to have a foreign accent and the woman completely misunderstood what he was asking her.
The Priest then went down the road and asked a man for directions as to where he was looking for. In essence locals say the whole viral message was just one unfortunate mix up.
In terms of what people are advised to do should they come over a legitimate suspicious individual, a member of the gardai told The Liberal:
“If anyone approaches you whilst you’re walking or jogging and you feel in any way threatened, run to the nearest property for help, scream, shout or if possible, ring 999. We would strongly urge people to share this information with their friends in an effort to combat any such incident”.