January 15, 2013

Smiling bank robber jailed for 28 months

By Anne Clarkson

Christchurch?s smiling bank robber who held up the ANZ Woolston branch in Ferry Road with a fake bomb and detonator was sentenced to two years four months prison today.

In the Christchurch District Court, Timothy Daniel Whelan, A 22-year-old unemployed Parklands man, was sentenced on a charge of aggravated robbery of the bank on September 24.

Defence counsel Michael Starling said Whelan went into the bank with a device he had created, and waited until the people who were being served had left. The device was cardboard, had wires attached,?but was not real and there was no risk of harm to anyone.

He said a clinical psychologist?s report said Whelan planned the offence and then became fixated with it.

Crown prosecutor Nicola Robson said the offending had not been well thought through but there were aspects of premeditation in making the device.

She said the co-offender who drove him to and from the bank had also been charged.

Reparation of $2525 was being sought by the bank, and an order for the destruction of the imitation bomb and false detonation device was sought by the Crown.

Judge David Holderness said Whelan entered the ANZ bank with the intention of demanding and taking money.

Whelan had financial difficulties after he resigned his employment, and he planned the offending over several days, he said.

Whelan taped several batteries and a switch together, put them in a plastic container and attached wires to make it look like a detonator. He approached a female teller who thought he was joking, but he showed her the false detonator and she handed over $5660 in cash.

Judge Holderness said there was no risk of actual physical harm to anyone in the bank, but they were not to know that.

He said Whelan had previously observed the premises and had decided in advance that that bank would be the target for the robbery, and he took a significant amount of money.

Police had recovered some of the money, but Whelan was unable to tell them what he had spent the rest on, he said.

He sentenced Whelan to two years four months prison, and ordered a reparation payment of $2525, and asked for a departmental psychologist report for the parole board.

Whelan was arrested after police released his security-camera image and it appeared in the media. He was smiling in the picture and had made no attempt to hide his identity.