A Dublin man has been sentenced to five and a half years in prison for the armed robbery of €50,000 from a security van driver outside a bank in Co Kildare three years ago.
Graham Doyle, 36 and with an address at The Iona Apartments, Prospect Hill, Finglas, pleaded guilty at a sitting of Naas Circuit Criminal Court to the robbery outside the AIB branch at Main Street, Clane on 30 May 2019.
The court had previously heard garda evidence that Doyle approached the driver of a security van as he was making a cash delivery to the bank at around 2pm.
CCTV images showed a man, who was identified as Doyle, with a small black handgun pulling the cash box from the grasp of the driver of the G4S security van who activated an emergency device.
Sentencing Doyle to six and a half years in prison with the final 12 months suspended, Judge Martina Baxter said the incident was "a very frightening experience" for the security van driver, who cannot be named by court order.
She acknowledged the victim was seriously traumatised by the manner in which he had been approached by the accused.
The judge said the crime was clearly "a well-planned, serious crime operation" as a second man, who was never identified by gardaí, had also taken part in the robbery.
She described CCTV footage which captured the incident as "very sinister."
"I can only imagine how terrified [the driver] was in trying to carry out his job," Judge Baxter remarked.
Gardaí said both the gun and cash box which contained an estimated €50,000 were never recovered.
The court heard Doyle ran up Main Street in Clane before jumping over a 3.6 metre wall near Mansworth's pub and escaping in a Ford Transit van.
The vehicle was found burnt out two days later while its registered owner said he had sold it to a man from Finglas.
Three gardaí subsequently identified Doyle as the person in the CCTV footage who was carrying a gun and wearing gloves and sunglasses.
In a victim impact statement, the security van driver said he was put in fear of his life by the incident.
He told the court he needed to take medication to help him to sleep for a year after the robbery as he would wake up sweating from bad dreams about what happened.
He said the incident had also impacted on his family who were worried about him and wanted him to give up his job.
Judge Baxter said the victim's powerful articulate statement had shown the devastating effect which the robbery had on him and his family.
However, the judge accepted Doyle’s expression of remorse as genuine and acknowledged he had no links to organised gangland crime and came from a respectable family.
The court also heard that Doyle’s gambling was a contributory factor in his crimes.
Judge Baxter noted that Doyle had 23 previous convictions and is currently serving a four and a half year prison term for a similar cash-in-transit robbery at the Aldi store in Clonee, Co Dublin seven months later.
While he had described the robbery in Clane as "a moment of madness," Judge Baxter said it was not his only moment of madness as he had committed the same offence again within several months.
The judge said she would suspend the final 12 months of his sentence for a period of two years provided he kept the peace and placed himself under the supervision of the Probation Service for a period of 12 months after his release.
