Unsuccessful bank robber jailed

A Jamaican immigrant who delivered a Christmas card to a bank teller with notes containing threats to kill her family and blow up the bank has been jailed for three years five months.

Paul Martin David Williams, 34, was sentenced yesterday in the Wellington District Court, The Dominion Post reported.

Williams had pleaded guilty to two charges of threatening to kill, one of threatening to harm property and one of demanding to steal.

Williams, who had no previous convictions, attempted to rob the National Bank on Featherston Street in central Wellington on December 9 using a Christmas card addressed to a teller, which he asked a passerby to deliver.

Police were called and an area of the central business district was cordoned off for more than five hours while the building was searched, but no explosives were found.

Williams fled to Sydney, where he was arrested at the airport as he was about to fly to Canada on December 17, and extradited back to New Zealand.

He originally entered New Zealand on a two-year working visa.

ODT/directory - Local Businesses

CompanyLocationBusiness Type
Packaging HouseDunedinPackaging
Southern Wide SRM Realty LtdWanakaReal Estate Agents
AA Auto Service & RepairsDunedinWarrant of Fitness (WOF)
AON New ZealandOamaruInsurance