A Dublin father of five has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for a robbery in which a bank official’s husband and two small children were held captive in a van.
Michael McGuirk (45) of Captain’s Road, Crumlin, pleaded guilty to the robbery at Bank of Ireland in Inchicore, Dublin, on October 23rd, 2009, in which nearly €250,000 was taken.
The official was threatened that her children would be mutilated and her husband shot.
Judge Desmond Hogan, noting McGuirk’s guilty plea and the minor nature of his previous convictions, suspended the final 12 months for five years.
The court heard that the bank’s branch officer, Nicola Hall, and two children, aged six and three, were asleep in bed at night. Her husband, John Jones, a taxi driver, was working and arrived back to their Lucan home at 1am. He was approached by three masked men and a gun was put to his face.
Cable ties
Det Garda Padraig Jennings told Úna Ní Raifeartaigh SC, prosecuting, that Ms Hall was woken by a man holding a hand over her mouth. Cable ties were put on Mr Jones’s arms and legs. The couple were separated and photographed with a gun put to their heads.
Mr Jones was lifted into the van along with the two children. A fourth man was in the van and it was driven away at 6.18am. Mr Jones’s car was also driven away.
Ms Hall was given instructions on what to do that morning. She had to tell the bank branch’s assistant manager what was going on because both of them were required to open the vault. She put €210,000, £6,000, $10,500 and other foreign currencies worth €18,000 in a bag.
After Ms Hall left the bank her phone rang. The raiders told her to drive her Jeep to a location and leave it there with the keys in the ignition.
Passerby alerted
Mr Jones and his children were held in the back of the van for five hours. As soon as the driver left, his son got through a small gap in the front of the van and alerted a passerby. The van was left at a garage in Rathdangan, Co Kildare, and Mr Jones’s car was found nearby.
A 999 call was received from an anonymous caller at 1pm to say a man and two children were tied up in a van.
This call was traced back to a phone box in Templeogue in Dublin which was forensically examined and fingerprints taken. McGuirk was stopped three miles from the box in a routine Garda stop. McGuirk was interviewed 22 times over a five-day period and provided no explanation for his fingerprints being found on the phone box. Nobody else has been charged in relation to the incident.
The court heard McGuirk has 31 previous convictions, including for violent disorder, firearms and traffic offences.