An armed robber who wore a red dress and a long black wig when he held two female bank staff members captive in Dublin has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in a €700,000 raid.
Danny Hamill (49) of Clanmaurice Road, Donnycarney and an accomplice were caught by gardaí minutes after they left the Allied Irish Bank branch in Crumlin on June 3rd, 2006.
Hamill, originally from Co Armagh, pointed a loaded pistol at a garda before being arrested by armed officers.
Hamill, a former INLA member, has six previous convictions included robbery and assault causing actual bodily harm to a garda. Both of these charges were dealt with in the Special Criminal Court and resulted in prison terms of five and two years respectively.
A set of keys for the front door of the bank, two loaded semiautomatic pistols, 34 rounds of live ammunition, a radio scanner tuned to Garda frequencies and a bag of cash from the raid were recovered by arresting gardaí at the scene.
Hamill changed his plea to guilty earlier this week on the sceond day of his trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. He admitted robbery, false imprisonment of a bank official and possession of the pistol. He had originally denied these charges.
The second man, who was due to be tried with Hamill, did not appear on the hearing date last Monday and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. He had been on High Court bail at the time of the robbery.
Judge Hunt suspended the last two years of the sentence having taken into account Hammill's plea and his expression of remorse to the bank officials and the gardaí, on the condition that the accused neither directly nor indirectly approach any of the prosecution witnesses in the case for five years upon his release from prison.
He said that in imposing a significant prison sentence, there was always going to be "collateral damage" and in this case it meant that Hamill's terminally-ill mother and sick wife would not have his support. However, he added, "at the end of the day he is the only one to blame for this".
Judge Hunt said there was still "a lingering mystery" as to how the men got the front door keys of the bank and said they were very "comprehensively disguised". He said the "joint must have been cased" because they knew exactly where the CCTV cameras were positioned in the building.