A SECURITY guard was robbed by two men outside the Lloyds TSB bank in Nacton Road in front of shocked lunchtime shoppers, a court has heard.

Heinz Tieck, who worked for G4S, was unloading bags of cash from the rear of his security van at around 12.30pm on March 2 last year, when he was attacked and ended up on the ground, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

He then saw two men run off with five bags of cash, containing £1,750 that he had been about to deliver to the bank, said David Wilson, prosecuting.

The two robbers ran to nearby Gorse Road where they got into a car which drove off at speed.

A member of the public heard shouting and screaming coming from outside the bank and after seeing two men run past him and get into a car, he made a note of the registration number.

The car was later traced to 30-year-old Kevin Clarke, of Dillwyn Street, Ipswich, who has denied acting as the getaway driver for the robbery.

Clarke, who has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery, told police he had unwittingly become involved in the robbery after three men he had met the day before asked him to give them a lift to a hair appointment in Nacton Road.

He claimed he had stayed in his car with one of the men while the other two got out. He said that when the men returned to the car they told him to drive off as they had an altercation in the barber’s shop.

He said he had dropped the men off and had been mending a chain on his bike when he was arrested by the police.

Mr Wilson claimed that Clarke had known what was taking place and was a willing getaway driver.

“He says he was duped into it and didn’t know what was taking place,” he told the court.

The trial continues today.