A DUBLIN woman has described her family’s kidnapping ordeal when armed raiders burst into her home in a €2.28 million robbery four years ago.
Marie Richardson told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday how she and her two teenage sons were taken hostage in the back of a four wheel drive vehicle to Cloon Wood near the Wicklow Mountains in the early hours of March 14th, 2005, where two masked men held them captive overnight.
She said: “I was frightened, very frightened, but felt like I was going into survival mode because my children were with me.”
Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, had earlier told the jury that Paul Richardson would describe how he went to work the next morning and deposited more than €2 million cash from his Securicor van at The Angler’s Rest pub car park in Lucan, while his wife and sons were captive in Wicklow.
David Byrne (36), Old Brazeel Way, Knocksedan, Swords; Niall Byrne (27), Aughavanagh Road, Crumlin; Mark Farrelly (37), Moatview Court, Priorswood; Christopher Corcoran (61), Bayside Boulevard North, Sutton, and Jason Kavanagh (34), Parslickstown Court, Ladyswell, have all pleaded not guilty to falsely imprisoning the Richardson family on March 13th and 14th, 2005.
They have also pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to robbing Mr Richardson and Securicor on the same date. The trial, which is expected to last three months, continues before Judge Tony Hunt and a jury of seven men and five women.
Ms Richardson told Mr Vaughan Buckley that one of the raiders at her home had assured her: “Everything will be okay, your husband knows what to do. He has a job to do for us.”
Ms Richardson said she looked at her husband and said: “There’s no heroes . . . just do what they want.”
She had initially thought the man who rang her doorbell at about 10pm on March 13th, was a fast-food delivery person at the wrong address.
She reached for the door’s lever and as soon as she heard it click, the man had pushed his hand through and on to her face.
The man, whom she described as “raider number one”, wearing thick rimmed glasses, a baseball cap and with “long-ish” black hair, told her to stop screaming as she struggled with him in the doorway and two other men pushed past into the sitting room.
She said the first man gripped her in a headlock before he brought her into the living room, where her younger son was watching television. He assured her that “everything will be all right.”
She said “raider number one” concealed his face with a car blanket that had been on the sofa while a “heavier set” raider, wearing a black wool balaclava, took a machine gun out of a cardboard box he had carried into the house.
She described the third raider as a “skinny fellow” who had initially used her son’s pillow case as a mask, but later fashioned a balaclava from a grey school jumper when he began to sweat through the blue material.
Ms Richardson said her husband arrived back at their home in Raheny with her other son a short while later and the raiders grabbed him by the lapels and held him at gunpoint.
The raiders turned the volume up on the living room television set as the Richardsons tried to calm their eldest son who started having a panic attack.
The family were made to sit on a two-seat couch in the living room while “raider number one” took a Polaroid photo of his masked companions pointing guns at their heads.
Ms Richardson said the largest raider asked for her husband’s car keys and moved his car from the driveway, before opening the front door to two other men.
These men did not come into the house, but sat waiting in a black vehicle as three Richardsons were told to gather coats, food and drink for their journey.