NORTHERN BANK official Christopher Owen Ward was yesterday named as the inside man who is suspected of helping to pull off one of the largest cash robberies in UK history four years ago.
However, Gordon Kerr QC, prosecuting, told the start of Mr Ward's trial at Belfast Crown Court that the case against him is circumstantial.
Mr Ward (26), Colinmill, Poleglass, Belfast, denies the £25.5 million (€31.7 million) robbery on December 20th, 2004, and the kidnapping of his bank boss Kevin McMullan and his wife Karen.
Mr Kerr told Mr Justice McLaughlin that facts could be established to properly infer the robbers had a high degree of inside knowledge and that it had come from Mr Ward.
The evidence excluded any reasonable possibility of an innocent explanation on Mr Ward's part, he said.
Mr Kerr said the robbery was planned with a knowledge of the bank and its work and security procedures. In order for it to be carried out, homes had to be taken over, that of Mr Ward's parents and the isolated rural home of Mr McMullan and his wife.
When the raid first came to light, after a distressed boiler-suited Ms McMullan stumbled out of a forest looking for help, followed soon afterwards by a call from Mr Ward to police, both he and Mr McMullan were treated as victims.
Mr Justice McLaughlin was told that both bankers were interviewed as witnesses to the robbery. As a result of the investigation and some significant discrepancies, Mr Ward later became a suspect, Mr Kerr said.
He said the court would be asked to consider the work rota of the two "key holders" to the bank vaults for the weekend of the robbery.
The court was told the rota, which placed him and Mr McMullan as the key holders, was prepared by Mr Ward. Mr Kerr claimed there was also a question mark over Mr Ward's movements, or lack of them, in the hours before his parents' home was taken over.
The lawyer further suggested there were significant differences in the hostage-taking situations at the two homes.
The court heard that when the robbers arrived at Mr Ward's home, unlike Mr McMullan's, they gained entry by a simple request and no elaborate ruse of disguise was used, nor were any weapons shown or used and no hostage was removed from the house in order to ensure Mr Ward's co-operation.
In the case of Mr McMullan, the robbers tricked their way in by pretending to be police officers, who once inside produced their guns and assaulted and manhandled both Mr McMullan and his wife.
A blindfolded Ms McMullan was later taken from the house and her husband was told she would be released if he did everything he was told. "He was told bluntly that if he did not, she would be killed," Mr Kerr said.
Mr Kerr further claimed that after the two men had gone to work and Mr McMullan had made the first of three calls to the robbers, discrepancies began to creep in between what he and Mr Ward said occurred.
The trial, which could last from six to eight weeks, continues today.