AN ASSISTANT manager at the Northern Bank Cash Centre in Belfast yesterday told how he and his wife were threatened at gunpoint and told that they would be killed if he did not co-operate with a gang planning to rob millions from the cash centre.
Kevin McMullen told how a man posing as a policeman called to his house on the evening of December 19th, 2004, and asked him to confirm his identity before “informing” him that his sister had been killed in a car crash and he was needed to identify her body.
Mr McMullen said he went back into the house and that the man followed him in to be followed by an armed gang who threatened to kill his wife Karen if he did not facilitate their robbing of the Northern Bank Cash Centre in Donegall Square West in Belfast.
“A gun was put to the back of my head, also to my wife’s head. We were both tied up with plastic ties around our hands. A man pulled a hat down over my wife’s face and tape around her head at eye level. They then led her away from the house.
“Two men stayed in the house with me. They went through a plan to be followed out the next day at work. If I didn’t comply fully or if anything went wrong, my wife would be killed. They repeated that threat throughout the night.
“I had no choice because of the threat made against my wife. I feared these men would carry out the threat – if anything went wrong with the robbery, my wife would be killed. They said, ‘We’ll shoot her in the head, we will damage her beyond repair’, and that I would be killed.”
Mr McMullen was giving evidence before Judge Cornelius Murphy at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on the third day of the trial of a financial adviser and his son.
They are both charged with money-laundering more than £3 million taken in the Northern Bank raid.
Ted Cunningham (60), Woodbine Lodge, Farran, Co Cork, denies 20 charges of money-laundering while his son, Timothy Cunningham (33), Church View, Farran, denies four charges of money-laundering, all between December 20th, 2004, and February 16th, 2005.
Among the charges they both face is one of possessing £3,010,380 at Farran between December 20th, 2004, and February 16th, 2005, knowing or believing it to be the proceeds of a robbery at the Northern Bank Cash Centre, Donegall Square West, Belfast.
Mr McMullen told the jury of seven men and five women that he went into work at about 11.30am on December 20th, 2004, and followed the gang’s instructions, entering the vault and sending staff home to facilitate the robbery.
The court heard that the gang never entered the bank centre but that Mr McMullen and another employee, Chris Ward – who, like Mr McMullen, was also a key-holder to the vault – brought the money out to them.
Cross-examined by Jim O’Mahony SC, for Ted Cunningham, about Mr Ward, Mr McMullen confirmed that Mr Ward had also said that he was put under pressure by the gang taking some of his family members prisoner as they had done with his wife.
Mr McMullen confirmed that Mr Ward had been charged by the PSNI with false imprisonment and robbery but that the prosecution had withdrawn the case and that he had not been convicted of any offence in relation to the raid.
Another prosecution witness, Danny Hamilton, who worked as supervisor at the Northern Bank Cash Centre, told the court that some £17,650,000 in new Northern Bank notes and some £8,850,000 in mixed used notes from several banks was taken in the raid.
The case continues.