Tiger kidnap victim ‘lost part of his life’
Family held as €2m taken in cash-in-transit robbery
A SECURICOR worker who was the victim of a tiger kidnapping has said he ‘lost a part of [his] life’ that night in a robbery that was committed for ‘one reason only, greed’.
Last May, Niall Byrne, 36, Mark Farrelly, 47, Christopher Corcoran, 71, and David Byrne, 45, were convicted by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for their various roles in the €2.08million cashin-transit van robbery, during which Paul Richardson’s family home was raided and he and his family were threatened at gunpoint.
The gang forced Mr Richardson to go to work the next day while his wife Marie and their teenage sons Ian and Kevin were held at gunpoint in the Dublin Mountains until he had delivered the cash to a car park in west Dublin.
The four had all pleaded not guilty to robbing Mr Richardson and Securicor of €2.08million on March 14, 2005, and to the false imprisonment of the Richardson family at their home at Ashcroft, Raheny, on March 13 and 14, 2005.
Niall Byrne, who was considered ‘the inside man’, was convicted of conspiracy to robbery.
The jury, who deliberated for just under 18 hours, was unable to reach a majority verdict in relation to a charge of kidnapping against him.
This was the third time Niall Byrne was prosecuted at trial, with the other two trials ending with hung juries.
The jury convicted Mark Farrelly, Christopher Corcoran and David Byrne of robbery and false imprisonment of the four Richardsons.
This trial, which began last January, was the fifth time the case went to trial.
Following a sentence hearing yesterday, Judge Melanie Greally said she needed time to consider the case and remanded the men in continuing custody until July 16, next for sentence.
Mr Richardson said in his victim impact report yesterday that he spent his 60th birthday in court, having just given evidence for the fifth time.
He said he could not leave the court after giving his evidence because he had promised his family, ‘I would keep going until justice prevailed. I lost a part of my life that night and I will never get it back.’
Mr Richardson said the raiders had ‘no regard for the damage they caused’ and said they never contacted him by walkie-talkie, as they had promised, to tell him his family were safe.
He said the crime was ‘committed for one thing and one thing only; greed’.
During the robbery Mr Richardson’s family were held overnight by the armed robbers before being taken in a van and tied up with cable ties. They were left in nearby woods.
His wife Marie said the home the couple had made ‘for ourselves and our boys’ was destroyed that night. She said she had gone to work full-time as her husband was unable to go back to work for three years.