Bank worker denies providing robbers with inside information

After the raid at the NatWest branch in Church Street, Hunslet, Leeds, sketches of the layout done by Rachel Shariar-Namini were found at the home of William Wormald, whom she had been seeing for some months.

Jonathan Sharp, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court yesterday it was not disputed Wormald and another man, Darren Ashcroft, were the two robbers who broke in through the roof of the bank on the morning of March 9.

"They got down into the ladies toilets on the first floor and from there knew exactly what they were doing and exactly where they were going," he said.

The pair, who were masked, went downstairs where one carrying a crowbar gestured staff away from their desks while the other went to a temporary storage area where the money was waiting to be collected by Securicor.

They were polite, quiet and did not threaten anybody with the crowbar "and they very quickly and very efficiently took all the money from the temporary storage and having done that they went out the rear fire escape."

He told the jury Wormald, Ashcroft and a third man who provided the getaway car, David Cowie, have already admitted their part in the robbery.

Shariar-Namini, 23, of Victoria Avenue, Rothwell, Leeds, denies the offence.

Mr Sharp said it was the Crown's case she was guilty because she provided the inside information "without which this bank robbery could not have taken place."

She had a "detailed knowledge" of the layout and procedures having previously worked at the Hunslet branch until about a month earlier when she had been promoted and moved to the Rothwell branch as manager.

Some months before the robbery she had been introduced to Wormald. "They obviously hit it off," said Mr Sharp "and became pretty much immediately boyfriend and girlfriend."

He was not well off, working in a builder's merchants, and she paid for things and because she drove and he did not, was the person who drove them around.

"During that relationship we say she gave information to William Wormald who in turn made it available to Darren Ashcroft."

When Shariar-Namini was interviewed by police she told them: "I was drunk, I didn't know what I was doing."

Mr Sharp said the prosecution would say she knew precisely what she was doing.

A plan recovered from Ashcroft's home had an X marking the temporary storage unit where the money would be that morning and an X at the roof entry point. Sketches of the layout were also found at Wormald's home in Park Plaza, Leeds. Shariar-Namini told officers she had no idea he planned to use the information for a robbery.

Mr Sharp said after the raid, on Sunday March 14, Wormald and Shariar-Namini went shopping in York where two shop assistants remembered him having a lot of money.

In a letter found in Shariar-Namini's handbag Wormald had written to her: "Hope we get the money and then we can have a house for Christmas."

Afsana Ali, who had been manager for only five days at the time of the robbery, told the jury she thought she had locked the money into the temporary security area but after the raid realised the lock had not closed correctly.

She agreed under cross-examination by Jason Pitter, defending Shariar-Namini, that no one outside the bank that morning could have known that.

The trial continues.