Gardai are trawling through CCTV footage after being given a description of a possible suspect in the case of a vicious assault in Letterkenny.
Student Shanan Reid McDaid was brutally set upon as she looked for a taxi at Market Square in the town in the early hours of Sunday morning last.
The 18-year-old Galway University Arts student was hospitalised after a stranger came from behind her and verbally abused her calling her a “bitch’ and a ‘slut.’
When she turned around, the man savagely attacked Shanan with a series of punches to her face.
She begged him to stop and Shanan later told how she thought she was going to die if the man hadn’t stopped assaulting her.
The man escaped and the young woman eventually caught up with friends who took her to hospital.
A local taxi-driver who picked up a man matching the description Shanan gave to Gardai has now reported the matter.
The driver said he picked up a man in an agitated state just after 3am on Sunday morning, the same time Shanan was attacked.
Gardai have now confirmed they have a description of the man which they are trying to match up with CCTV footage from the area from various cameras.
A Garda spokesman said “A full investigation into the incident is ongoing and we are going through all the CCTV footage available at this stage.
“As always we would appeal to anybody who may have been in the area at the time of the alleged incident to come forward and their information will be treated in the strictest of confidence.”
Meanwhile, Shanan said she is still recovering from her ordeal after separate treatments at both Letterkenny University Hospital and Sligo General Hospital.
Again she appealed for young women not to walk home alone late at night.
“I would just ask them not to think it will not happen to them. I never thought this would happen to me but it did.
“I’m still very sore but I am getting a little better. I wouldn’t want any other girl to go through what happened to me so I would appeal to them not to walk home or be out alone late at night,” she said.
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