Man jailed for kidnap robbery

Ms Hall had to tell the assistant manager what was going on because both of them were required to open the vault. She put €210,000, Stg£6,000, $10,500 and a number of other foreign currencies worth €18,000 in a bag.

After Ms Hall left the bank her phone rang. The raiders asked her questions and she was told her family were safe. She was told to drive her jeep to a location and leave it there with the keys in the ignition.

Mr Jones and his two 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 passer-by.

The van was left at a garage in Rathdangan, Co Kildare and Mr Jones’s own car was also 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. The court heard the phone box had not been used in a number of hours.

McGuirk was stopped three miles from the phone box in a routine Garda stop by Garda Jean O’ Brien.

When he was later arrested it was found fingerprints matched those on the phone box and a partial DNA profile was found on the handbrake of the van.

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 violent disorder, firearms and road traffic offences.

In a victim impact statement read to the court on behalf of Ms Hall, she said she was threatened that her children would be mutilated and her husband shot.

“If there was any idea of hell, this would be it,” she said.

She said she eventually returned to work after six months but no longer works at that branch of the bank.

Mr Jones said he and his children were put into the back of a van in freezing, dirty conditions.

He said his children had to go to the toilet in the back of a van as they were not given the dignity to go outside.

Under cross-examination Det Gda Jennings agreed with Sean Gillane SC, defending, that his client was “the only person to answer for this”.

Mr Gillane said his phone call was his only act of decency and asked the court to take account of his guilty plea. He said his client was a roofer with five children, that his wife was not well and asked the court to have regard to his age.

Mr Gillane added McGuirk is ashamed of his involvement and is very sorry for it.