The trial of four men accused of kidnapping a Securicor worker and his family and robbing €2.28m has heard that two of the accused were “lifelong friends” and members of a horse-owning syndicate.

A jury has heard that a man accused of plotting to steal from a cash-in-transit van had been told by Eamonn Dunne that he would be shot if he did not get involved.

A Monaghan man in his 20s failed to offer any explanation for why he had certain explosive materials in his presence when he was arrested during an armed raid on a Dublin apartment, the Special Criminal Court heard today.