Grandmother tells jury of kidnapping
A grandmother has told a jury that she and a nine-year-old girl were pushed into a car after being kidnapped from her home by armed hooded men.
Angela’s Shannon’s son, Reg, who is a Brinks Allied worker, earlier told the trial that he had been out walking his dog around 5am when two men grabbed him and instructed him to go back to his home.
The raiders later took the woman and child from the house before getting Mr Shannon to drive another car around Dublin. He was then instructed to pull into an alleyway behind the Bank of Ireland in O’Connell Street where his colleagues were about to deliver cash.
Mr Shannon said when the cash in transit van arrived he was told to get money off his colleagues. He had earlier been given a phone by the raiders from which he continued to receive directions from them.
He said he approached the van and explained the situation to his colleagues telling them: “My family has been taken in a tiger kidnapping and I need to get money.”
He then handed his colleague bags from the back of the van he had been driving and the man filled it up with money after calling Brinks Allied for the necessary security codes.
Mr Shannon said he was then given further instructions to drive to the Skylon Hotel and leave the money, the phone and the car keys behind in it.
He was then told to get a train towards Bray where he later reported the kidnapping to local gardai.
Stefan Saunders, 34-years-old and of Hazelbury Park, Blanchardstown has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to robbing €134,000 from Mr Shannon on January 4, 2010 and to falsely imprisoning him Mrs Shannon and the child at O’Connell Gardens, Bath Avenue, Dublin 4 on the same date.
Remy Farrell SC, prosecuting earlier told the jury that this crime was “a very real plan to carry out a very serious kidnap” and that “Mr Saunders is one of those people intimately involved in both the planning and perhaps the execution of the robbery”.
The little girl’s interview with specially trained gardai the day after the kidnapping was read out to the jury by Mr Farrell.
She told gardai; “These people came to the house and they took us out in the car and they drove us around for ages”.
She described the car as having six or seven seats but said they were made lie down on the floor “because I don’t think they wanted people to see us”. She said there were toys in the vehicle.
The girl described the raiders, what they were wearing, their height and their accents but said she could not see their faces.
Mrs Shannon told Mr Farrell that the men had “hoods over their faces and guns”.
She said they told her “you know what this is” before one of them said the “child is here, we did not know the child was going to be here”, which Mrs Shannon said was in reference to the little girl sleeping in her bed.
Mrs Shannon said one of the men, who she described as being nice spoken, told them: “You are not the first and you won’t be the last, just do what we say and no harm will come to you”.
She said the men tied her and the child’s hands with cable ties before they were pushed into the back of a car. They were put on the floor of the car and a blanket was put over their heads before they were driven off.
She said the man who was driving the car was on the phone a lot and she could hear him saying things like what’s gone wrong?” and “why has it taken so long?”.
Mrs Shannon told the jury that after some time the girl vomited and she asked the man if they would be kept in the car much longer. He replied: “If things had gone to plan you ladies would have been home for your breakfast.”
She said the car eventually came to a stop and the man cut their ties. He told them “everything is alright now” before instructing them “to stay in the car for 30 minutes and your son will come to collect you”.
After a few minutes she opened the door but the man was across the road and shouted to get back into the car or she “would be sorry”.
She got back into the car and then heard a vehicle driving off so she opened the door immediately to let some air in and the child out.
A woman then pulled in behind them and she told the lady that she and the little girl had been kidnapped. The woman took them to her house, gave them a cup of tea and called the gardai.
The trial continues before Judge Patricia Ryan and a jury of six men and six women.
