Employee charged over Northern Bank robbery

A bank employee has been charged with robbery in connection with the £26.5m (€39.1m) Northern Bank raid, police said.

Chris Ward, 24, from Poleglass, west Belfast, was one of several staff members held hostage by the gang that carried out the raid in the centre of Belfast last December.

A police spokesman said Ward will appear today before Laganside magistrates.

A 35-year-old man arrested yesterday for questioning about the raid has been released without charge.

Ward was arrested on Tuesday November 29 by detectives investigating the biggest cash theft in British history.

Police were granted an extra 48 hours to question Ward on Monday night after he had already spent a week in custody.

Shortly after the robbery, opposite Belfast City Hall, the bank worker gave a TV interview in which he spoke of his ordeal.

He said gunmen took over his home warning him that both he and his family would be killed if he did not co-operate.

Ward said he was bundled into a car with a gun pointed at his face and driven to the home of his supervisor, where the pair were ordered to go into work as normal the next day while their families were held hostage.

During the robbery, Ward said he was ordered to stuff £1.2m (€1.8m) worth of notes into a sports bag and carry it from the bank in a dummy run.

Detectives investigating the robbery have already charged three men, one of them with the robbery itself.

Building contractor Dominic McEvoy, 23, of Kilcoo, Co Down, was the first man to be charged with the robbery last month.

He was remanded in custody after also being accused of holding a bank supervisor and his wife hostage and possession of a gun or imitation firearm.

Very little of the £26.5m taken in the robbery has been found.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde has blamed the IRA for robbing the bank.