THE TRIAL of 26-year-old banker Christopher Ward, accused of being the "inside man" in the £26.5 million (€33.1 million) Northern Bank raid, was yesterday shown CCTV footage of boxes of cash being gathered for collection by the robbers.
Mr Ward from Colinmill in Poleglass on the outskirts of west Belfast denies robbing his bank on December 20th, 2004 and falsely imprisoning his boss Kevin McMullan and kidnapping his wife Kyran.
CCTV images of both Mr Ward and Mr McMullan loading boxes of both new and used bank notes into a lift at the Donegall Park West Northern Bank headquarters were played to the Diplock non-jury Belfast Crown Court of Mr Justice McLaughlin.
At one stage, Mr Ward is seen leaving the Belfast bank with a sports bag slung over his shoulder, which the prosecution claim contained £1 million (€1.25 million) which was handed over to the robbers prior to a van being driven to the side of the bank to empty the vault.
However, defence QC Arthur Harvey took exception to the impression the video clip appeared to give, describing it "the iconic picture" of the robbery, and an image that could "be very damaging to Mr Ward".
Mr Harvey said the video trailer, shown in isolation, was open to interpretation and that it was "easy to have a very distorted picture" of what was occurring in the bank.
The picture, he said , "is much more sophisticated than that" as the money had firstly to be prepared, and this was done not by six o'clock in the evening, when Mr Ward is seen leaving the bank, but earlier that afternoon. Mr Harvey added that throughout all that was happening Mr Ward was never seen acting alone, and the CCTV images cleared showed him "acting in conjunction with Mr McMullan".
The lawyer suggested that although the images could not depict their thought processes, the actions of both men could be seen to be "a mirror" of each other. Mr Harvey added that while one conclusion that could be drawn of the images was that "Mr McMullan is the one in control", he was not suggesting that "for one moment".
But he did suggest that if such a conclusion, from the CCTV, could not properly be drawn against Mr McMullan, then it could not be drawn against his client.
Mr Harvey said that all the images appeared to show were the actions of the two bankers "working for a joint purpose".
The trial continues.