Hartlepool man cleared after unwittingly driving friend to £15,000 bank robbery

Owen Faulkner, 49, was charged alongside Gavin Wilson, with robbing Barclays Bank in York Road of £15,000 on Friday, June 12.

Wilson, 42, has admitted going inside the bank at around 10am and pointing an imitation gun at a member of staff and demanding cash.

But Mr Faulkner, who drove Wilson to and from the bank in his Renault Megane car, denied any knowledge of the robbery and told police he was only doing Wilson a favour.

The Crown Prosecution Service has now formally dropped the charge against him.

At Teesside Crown Court on Wednesday, August 5, prosecutor Robin Patton said: “This is a case where the police, having investigated his accounts, it turns out that there’s a great deal of truth in what he said to the police.”

At an earlier hearing at the magistrates court, Mr Faulkner's lawyer Andrew Teate said he had simply acted as a good Samaritan when Wilson phoned him that morning and asked if he could give him a lift to the bank.

Mr Teate said Wilson asked Faulkner to wait in the car park behind the bank and he returned after five minutes with no indication of what he had done.

He said: “The defendant says he's hardly going to drive his own car and park outside a bank in the centre of Hartlepool to allow someone to commit this offence.

"He is absolutely mortified that he has been involved in this.”

Mr Teate said Mr Faulkner had no financial need to commit such a crime and acted normally afterwards.

Martin Scarborough, who represents Wilson, said at the magistrates hearing: “He says Mr Faulkner did give him a lift to the bank but didn’t know what he was going to do.”

Judge Jonathan Carroll told Mr Faulkner, of Jameson Road, Hartlepool: “You are now formally discharged.”

Wilson, of Pinero Grove, Hartlepool is in custody awaiting sentence for robbery, possession of an imitation firearm and possession of cocaine.

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