Man gave bank teller threatening card, court told

A man who tried to rob a Wellington bank last year delivered a Christmas card to a bank teller containing a series of notes threatening to kill her family and blow up the bank, a court was told.

Paul Martin David Williams, 34, yesterday pleaded guilty to two charges of threatening to kill, one of threatening to harm property and one of demanding to steal in the Wellington District Court, The Dominion Post reported.

He had waited outside the National Bank on Featherston Street on December 9 with a Christmas card addressed to a teller, which he asked a passerby to deliver.

The first note in the card said the teller was being watched, and to put $100,000 or "as much money as you can" in a bag and take it outside. It also threatened to kill her and her family, and told her to read the second note outside.

The second note instructed her to put the money on some recycle bins and go back to the bank, and the final note told her to wait 10 minutes then evacuate the bank, where it claimed four bombs were planted.

The 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 was extradited back to New Zealand. He had pleaded guilty after Judge John Walker indicated a jail term of three years and five months and was remanded in custody for sentencing next month.

- NZPA