Updated at 15:26

A MAN WHO PLEADED guilty to stealing €318,000 from a bank employee after claiming he had kidnapped her partner has been sentenced to four years in prison.

Tony Quinn, 30, of Park View, Park Close, Ballymun, was arrested after two ESB employees working on railway cables saw a woman leave a large leather bag over a fence – and a man run off with it a few moments later, the Independent reports.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that a Permanent TSB staff member was given permission to take the money from her branch in the belief her partner had been kidnapped and was being held by a gang.

She watched as Quinn retrieved the bag from behind a fence at Broombridge railway station, where she had been instructed to leave it. Seeing these events unfold, the ESB workers phoned the gardaí.

Quinn, the woman’s partner and two other men were arrested in connection with the theft, according to RTÉ. The four had sent the bank employee a picture of her partner being held with a gun to his head.

After his arrest, Quinn admitted to gardaí that there had been no kidnapping, the Irish Times reports, and said he had to collect the money over a drug debt. His defence counsel said Quinn was a serious drug addict at the time of the offence and gardaí told the court that they were investigating threats made to his family. He had no previous convictions.