Bank worker and seven-year-old daughter kidnapped by raiders, court told

Michael Dunphy (45), of HMP Doncaster, is on trial at Sheffield Crown Court accused of four counts of kidnap and three counts of attempted robbery.

He is said to have been part of a gang of robbers who tried to take £500,000 from a branch of Barclays at Stag roundabout in November.

Three of the would-be robbers are said to have followed a Barclays employee from her home in a stolen Audi and kidnapped her, her seven-year-old daughter, and her colleagues Zoe Copley and Jo Blakey.

They are said to have forced two of the bank's employees to open a safe before fleeing the scene empty-handed minutes before police officers arrived.

In a recorded police interview which was relayed to the jury today, a woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, described the moment she was stopped by what she thought was an unmarked police car as she dropped her elder daughter off at school.

“As I came round, what I thought was an unmarked police car came straight towards me,” she said.

“It was a blue Audi and it had blue flashing lights behind the front grille.

“I thought: ‘Are they stopping me? Have I done something wrong?’”

The woman said she had looked in the car and seen a man wearing a bandana scarf around his face.

“I grabbed hold of the top of the car and I just screamed,” she said.

“He [one of the robbers] held my arm and said: ‘Just get in the car’.”

The woman said a man who was sitting next to her in the back of the car had turned to her and said: “You’re alright, we just want the money.”

She said that was the moment she had realised what was happening.

The woman said she had to try and reassure her seven-year-old daughter who had been put in the car with her.

“All the way down I said: ‘Please don’t hurt my little girl’,” she said.

“I was very anxious when I got in the car.

“I didn't want them to hurt my little girl.”

Asked how she felt during the car journey, she said: “I wanted to scream, cry and get out.

“I wanted to get out that car safely with my daughter.”

Judge Robert Bartfield previously told the jury of seven men and five women that Dunphy would deny playing any part in the kidnapping.

“As for the attempted robbery, his defence will be that he was acting under duress and that he was forced to act this out,” he said.

The trial continues.