Hooded man armed with slash hook steals €1,500 from Post Office

A HOODED man armed with a slash hook robbed over €1,500 from a post office in West Cork and then took off in a car he stole from outside the premises.

That was the outline given by the prosecution of the allegation being made against Ian Horgan of 4, The Hermitage, Macroom, Co Cork, when he was put on trial yesterday at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

Horgan denied charges of carrying out a robbery at Clondrohid post office on September 6, 2005, and stealing a car.

Prosecution barrister, Siobhán Langford said Ted and Mary Healy were preparing lunch in the kitchen at the back of the shop when they noticed a man standing at the door of the kitchen.

Mr Healy testified: “A man stood in the door, presumably a man, with a gauze-type hood over his head and with a plastic bag and a type of slash hook in his hand. He said, ‘Sit down’.

“I thought it was a joke. That was my first impulse. Then I realised it was serious. I sat down. He said, ‘All I want is the money’.

“I asked him not to upset my wife. She wasn’t well at the time. I stood up. He asked me to sit down again which I did. He asked, ‘Is there a phone in the kitchen?’ I said No.”

Mr Healy saw his son Con walking up the yard at the back and he made an unsuccessful attempt to alert him to the fact that something was going on. Con Healy thought his father was calling him so he came in and the hooded man asked him where the safe was.

He then went to the safe in the hall and locked the Healy family in the kitchen.

“He made me go to the safe and open it. He made me go back to the kitchen and he locked the door of the kitchen,” Con Healy testified.

The man then got into Con Healy’s car outside. Ted Healy said that when he was outside he saw the man reversing the car at high speed and he had to jump out of his way. Both witnesses said it was a frightening experience.

The case will continue today before Judge Con Murphy and a jury of nine men and three women at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.