A BANK MANAGER has told a court in Australia that he robbed $40,000 from his own branch after he was told to do so by ‘Irish revolutionaries’ who injected him with a poison that could not be cured.

John Thomas Forrester, 51, is on trial in Queensland for robbing the money – around €30,000 – in April 2009.

He claims that he was car-jacked by two men who stabbed him in the neck with a needle and demanded he rob a bank and deliver the money, or else he would die, the Courier Mail reports.

Appearing at Southport District Court the manager of the Mudgeeraba Bank said he was told that if he stole the money and delivered it then somebody would throw him a rock wrapped in paper with details of where to find a red tablet that would cure him from the effects of the poison.

Forrester claims that one of the men had an Irish accent and said the money was for the revolutionary cause, to stop the oppression of his people.

The Gold Coast Bulletin reports that when Forrester arrived at the bank he instructed employee Scott Hale to open the safe and check it as they did every morning. He then took the cash from the safe, put it in his backpack and walked out of the branch without saying a word.

Prosecutors have described his story as “utter nonsense”. Co-workers have told the court that Forrester is an honest man and upstanding citizen.

The trial continues.