Cork hotelier warns the public of the dangers of spiking in the city's bars

Eva Osborne

Cork hotelier John Gately is warning the public of the dangers of spiking of drinks in the city's late bars after his son Tom fell victim to a spiking incident.

Speaking to the Neil Prendeville on Cork's Redfm show, John said his son Tom was out last Monday, January 13th and was spiked.

He said he and his wife were very concerned about his condition and brought him to Mercy University Hospital in Cork.

When they arrived at the hospital, there were five other people waiting for treatment and three of those five had also been spiked - one was spiked in the same location as Gately's son.

"It was last Monday, Tom our son, who is 21, a big burly 6ft 1 lad, lots of friends, very popular guy. He was out of the country for a week or two and was just back there last weekend and then decided to meet up with the pals in town," Gately explained.

"So he had texted us, it was late enough it was around 1:30am. It was a normal text saying he was going to grab a cab home soon and then the next minute my wife gets a call at 2:50 in the morning that he didn't know where he was, he was totally disorientated and confused and whatever.

"She didn't even wake me she just went straight in herself and said I'll ring you if I need you. She picked him up a distance away from where he had been. He was completely disorientated."

"He doesn't even remember going down there. The one thing he does remember is he was crossing the room in the place and felt a jolt of his glass, so he reckons he had the glass in his hand when somebody did what they did, poured something into it or whatever."

Gately said people should watch their drinks and stick with their friends on nights out to safeguard themselves from spiking incidences.