A mum whose kid's presents were burned in her stolen car has hit back at criticism over a post joking about the Essex truck deaths.
Cork native Adrianne Cook hit the headlines earlier this week after it emerged up to €1,000 worth of her son's Christmas gifts were destroyed at the hands of heartless thugs.
The 32-year-old has since received criticism for an online post saying she's receiving more media coverage than a man charged over the deaths of 39 immigrants.
The now deleted post added: "PS: Has anyone Ellen DeGeneres' email? To see can I get a spot on her show for an interview."
However, she has told Irish Mirror it was a joke she made in what has been a stressful week.
She said: "People need to get a grip, it was a joke.
"I mean look at the amount of coverage over my car - surely there's more important news. That's all that was meant by it!"
She previously told how she spent months collecting toys for her three-year-old boy Cillian.
Adrianne is now on a mission to catch those responsible.
She said: “It didn’t hit me straight away but it did two days later and I cried for the whole weekend.
“Since August I’ve been collecting one or two toys every week.
“There was between €800 and €1,000 worth of gifts, if not more, in the boot.
“That includes presents from others, including his grandfather.
“A GoFundMe page was set up to raise money to replace the toys.
“But I don’t even care about the toys, it’s the principle.
“They were in the boot, ready to be put into storage.
“People were messaging me saying they’ll donate toys.
“But I told everyone I don’t want toys, I just want people to keep sharing the story so we can catch those who did this.”
Adrianne, who has lived on Cathedral Road in Cork for three years, currently works as a chef and studies at night at UCC.
However, she has admitted she’s now “questioning” her decision to become a youth worker as she believes those responsible are young.
She explained how just the shell of the car is left and all the fire crews could make out was Cillian’s Spiderman school bag.
She said: “Everything is gone. They don’t realise how hard this will be for me.
“This has just caused me so much trouble because all of the forms I’ll have to fill out to sort out the car.
"Allianz are assessing the car but there's nothing to save. It's only a shell now.
"The lads didn't even look in the boot because if they did, they would've hit the jackpot.
"There was no need, no reason, to do what they did."
She shared CCTV footage with Cork Beo of two individuals who she is "positive" were involved in the incident.
Ms Cook is confident those responsible will be caught, but believes the investigation may take a number of weeks.
Gardai confirmed they are investigating the discovery of a car up in flames on North Monastery Road, near Neptune Stadium, at 3.30am on Friday.
A garda spokesman said: "Gardaí are investigating an incident where a car was discovered on fire on North Monastery Road just after 3.30am on the 25 of October 2019.
"The car is believed to have been stolen overnight from the Gurranabraher area."
