Accused bank robber’s alleged kill threat as police probe weapons charge

A Queensland man accused of a 1999 bank robbery where a police officer was shot is alleged to have threatened to kill police investigating him on a weapons supply charge, a court has heard

Alleged bank robber and gunman Shane O’Reilly Ryan. Picture: 7news

A Queensland man accused of a 1999 bank robbery where a police officer was shot is alleged to have threatened to kill police investigating him on a weapons supply charge and to force an alleged female co-offender to “shut her mouth”, a court has heard.

Lawyers representing Shane O’Reilly Ryan appeared in the Supreme Court in Brisbane on Thursday where they applied for his release on bail on a charge of unlawful supply of five or more weapons alleged to have occurred at Wacol between March 3, 2021 and August 19, 2022.

He has been in custody since he was refused bail on the charge by a Brisbane Magistrate on November 13 last year, following a committal.

While he did not apply for bail on these charges, he is also facing a charge of armed robbery and deprivation of liberty after the robbery of a National Australia Bank branch at Browns Plains on March 24, 1999, where two men held staff and customers at gunpoint.

The National Australia Bank at Browns Plains was held up in March 1999.

Those charges are due in the District Court in Brisbane for mention on Friday.

Prosecutor Mitchell Whelan submitted to Justice Thomas Bradley on Thursday that Ryan should not be granted bail because he in an unacceptable risk of reoffending while on bail, endangering the safety and wellbeing of a person and interfering with witnesses.

Barrister Carl Martinovic submitted that the claims that Ryan, 52, had threatened detectives were made by key prosecution witness, a Mr Griffiths, who had given two statements to the police.

“Mr Griffiths seems to refer to threats being made by the applicant to kill investigating police and the other is that Mr Griffiths relays a conversation he had with the applicant, about a co-offender, and someone called the outstanding female offender, which says something to the effect, ‘his ex would want to shut her mouth and I need to get hold of her’,” Justice Bradley said, summarising the witness statement.

Mr Martinovic told the court that Mr Griffiths had suggested in his statement to police in relation to the 1999 Browns Plains bank robbery where a police officer was shot that Ryan “had effectively told him that … he had removed the gun from the police officer’s holder (SIC) and had then used that gun to in fact shoot the police officer concerned”.

“To date there was no forensic evidence supporting that,” Mr Martinovic said.

“This is the charge of intention to cause GBH,” Mr Martinovic said.

Constable Neil Scutts, who was shot in a hold up at NAB Browns Plains. File picture

Ryan is charged with robbery with actual violence, armed/in company/wounded.

Mr Martinovic said Mr Griffiths was a “career fraudster” with a 36-page criminal history.

He submitted that his client was also facing a charge of drug trafficking in Beenleigh Magistrates Court but that Mr Martinovic was not instructed to appear on those charges to apply for bail, or in that court, due to a conflict.

After a short break in the bail application, Mr Martinovic ask Justice Bradley if he could stand the matter down and adjourn the bail application part-heard to the Supreme Court registry, so he could contact the solicitors who are representing Ryan on the drug trafficking charge.

Policeman Neil Scutts. Pic: Peter Wallis

Mr Martinovic said he would invite the other lawyers “to join us in a Supreme Court joint application” for bail.

“I will adjourn it to a date to be fixed,” Justice Bradley said.

Despite Mr Martinovic stating the trafficking charge is before the Beenleigh Magistrates Court, court records show it is listed to return to Brisbane Magistrates Court on July 29, together with the weapon supply charge.