THE TRIAL of a financial adviser charged with money-laundering more than £3 million has heard evidence from Northern Bank staff from Belfast that notes recovered at a variety of locations by gardaí had passed through the cash centre that was robbed.
Daniel Hamilton told the trial of Ted Cunningham that he was working as a supervisor at the Northern Bank cash centre in Donegall Square West when it was robbed on December 20th, 2004. He later assisted gardaí by examining notes recovered during their investigation.
Mr Cunningham denies 20 charges of money laundering including one of possessing £3,010,380 at Farran, Co Cork, 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 in Belfast.
Mr Hamilton told how he had travelled to Dublin three times in November and December 2005 and January 2006 to examine 15,000 notes from the 155,000 notes recovered by gardaí investigating the Northern Bank raid.
Mr Hamilton told the jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday that he recognised his handwriting on 56 different £20 bank notes issued by the Bank of Ireland, First Trust, Ulster Bank and the Bank of England when the sterling notes were handed to him in court.
He explained that notes with his writing would have been on top of bundles of notes that he handled and that the handwriting consisted of circled numbers which either denoted the total number of notes in the bundle or the monetary value of the bundle.
Mr Hamilton also confirmed that he had identified a further 14 mixed £20 notes carrying the brand or stamp of various branches which would have been on the top note in bundles of cash.
All these notes carried clearly identifiable sorting codes.
These enabled him to identify what branch had remitted them to the Northern Bank cash centre and one from Lurgan, Co Armagh, also bore a date of either December 15th or 16th which showed it passed through Lurgan on those dates.
Cross-examined by Mr Cunningham’s counsel, James O’Mahony SC, Mr Hamilton agreed that identifying his handwriting and the other marks on the notes meant that he could only confirmed that they passed through the Northern Bank cash centre at some stage.
However, he pointed out it that it was in the Northern Bank’s interest to repatriate notes issued by other banks as quickly as possible so they could get their own sterling in return.
He added that the average lifespan of a sterling note in Northern Ireland was 11 weeks.
Det Garda Séamus Padden said the notes identified by Mr Hamilton included notes recovered from Mr Cunningham, from property developer John Sheehan, car salesman, Dan Joe Guerin, jewellers John and Jack Douglas and ones from the midlands which are not the subject of criminal charges.