'Chit chat' gave robber details of bank layout

Rachel Shariar-Namini said she had trusted William Wormald and had no idea he would use the details to carry out a robbery at the Hunslet branch of NatWest in Leeds on March 9, this year.

She told a jury at Leeds Crown Court yesterday that when she spoke about her work to him she never intended it would help him commit a crime.

"It was just general chit chat about what had been going on through the day."

The court has heard Wormald and another man broke in through the roof of the bank into the women's toilets on a first floor and then stole 371,691 which staff had got ready for a Securicor collection.

Shariar-Namini, 23, of Victoria Avenue, Rothwell, Leeds, who by that time was manager of the Rothwell branch of the bank, denies the robbery.

She said Wormald had made some drawings of the layout of the bank while they were spending a night together at the Park Plaza Hotel in Leeds in January when she was "quite drunk".

They had shared a bottle of vodka together while watching a film on her laptop and then she had more drinks at a bar in the city centre before they returned to their room.

Shariar-Namini said while emptying her handbag to find something Wormald saw some bank keys that she had with her and that let to a conversation about staff security at banks.

That led on to discussions about cash deliveries and collections. She accepted he began to draw sketches of the layout at Hunslet where she was then working as she explained things to him. "I directed him where things were."

She told the jury she scribbled down some items and at the time did not think the questions unusual or for any particular purpose

"I should have realised I shouldn't have been contributing," she added

She told the court she had told Wormald to destroy the drawings and trusted he had. When she was arrested by police after the raid she agreed with her counsel Jason Pitter she had lied when she denied helping him with the notes.

"It was like seeing a ghost, I just panicked. I thought they were in the bin, I thought they had disappeared."

She added: "I knew I had done something wrong, something silly and I shouldn't have done it and I knew obviously my work wouldn't have liked what I had done, divulging information."

The court heard she joined NatWest at 20 and had received certificates for her good work including a 50 reward for thwarting a 60,000 fraud.

She met Wormald soon after Boxing Day last year and said a reference in a letter from him saying" hope we get the money then we can have a house for Christmas" referred to them saving up together, her from her 19,000 a year salary and his contribution from his work at a builder's yard and as a doorman.

Under cross-examination by Jonathan Sharp, prosecuting, she denied it referred to them getting money from the bank robbery.

He suggested she knew it was more than silly to have divulged secret information it was "seriously wrong."

Shariar-Namini said she had trusted her boyfriend.

"I suggest to you that it was obvious to you, as obvious as it can possibly be you had effectively given William Wormald a robber's guide hadn't you," he said.

"No," she replied.

He suggested she had been led astray because she was "head over heels in love" with Wormald, her first big affair and knew what he was going to do.

"I didn't," she said.

The trial continues.