Cross-dressing bank robber jailed

Hamill wore a red dress, a long black wig and sun glasses

An INLA man from County Armagh who robbed 700,000 euro from a Dublin bank while wearing a red dress has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Danny Hamill, 49, who was living in Donnycarney in the city, threatened a garda with handgun while trying to flee the Crumlin AIB branch in June 2006.

He and an accomplice used a set of its front door keys to gain access.

Hamill, who also wore a long black wig and sun glasses, held two female staff hostage.

He had carried out armed robberies for the INLA in the past, but the money he robbed during this raid was for himself and his accomplice, Dublin's Circuit Criminal Court was told on Thursday.

The judge described the robbery as a "well-resourced, premeditated and carefully planned".

The ATM machine had been broken to lure the men to the bank. Hamill, who had a scanner tuned to the garda frequency, cut the CCTV system and took the hard drive, with the footage of the robbery on it, with him as he left.

'Well cased'

The judge said the raiders knew the bank's system and the building had been "well cased".

He also praised the bravery of the gardaí who foiled the raid, one of whom was pregnant at the time.

However, he criticised the bank's security systems and said there was clearly a deficiency in AIB's key-holding procedures.

A spokeswoman for the bank said it "regularly carried out reviews of its security procedures" and had addressed the issues raised.