Manager masterminded own bank's robbery

Mark Andrew Scott

A former Wellsford bank manager has admitted he masterminded the robbery of his own bank.

As a hearing of evidence against Mark Andrew Scott, 39, drew to a close today he suddenly changed his plea to guilty.

Scott, 39, and his de facto wife Vanessa Scott, 27, admitted the armed robbery of the BNZ bank in Wellsford when they and two others stole $136,000 on June 20.

Both pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and two charges of kidnapping.

Scott, a former US marine who served in the Gulf War, was accused by police of helping to hatch the plot, then pretending to be a victim.

Police say Vanessa Scott, who had tried out unsuccessfully for a spot on New Zealand Idol this year, went into the bank with two men about 8am as staff were meeting with Mark Scott.

The two men, Lewis Blackwood-Manukau, 19, and Richard Murray Cowell, 26, have admitted storming the bank's reception area while wearing balaclavas and carrying filleting knives. Cowell also had a water bottle filled with petrol.

Blackwood-Manukau punched one staff member and bound her. Cowell bound and threatened another bank worker, who was pregnant.

Police were alerted by a passerby, and Blackwood-Manukau and Cowell were quickly arrested. The $130,000 taken was recovered.

Bank teller Deborah Poa told the North Shore District Court how she had tried to flee out the bank to raise the alarm when Vanessa Scott, Cowell and Blackwood-Manukau burst in through a back door.

She was hauled back and hit on the face before she was bound hand and foot and had a balaclava put on her head.

She said the shorter of the two men told her twice to "shut up bitch."

She said when the three robbers left, Mark Scott followed them down the stairs to the back door which she thought was strange when he had been so scared of them earlier.

Both Blackwood-Manukau and Cowell have pleaded guilty to kidnapping and aggravated robbery.

Mark and Vanessa Scott were remanded in custody today by Justices of the Peace, Elaine Utting and Dianne Rosenbrook, to reappear next Tuesday.