Rothschild heiress raided as children slept nearby
RAIDERS have stolen jewels worth £500,000 from an heiress to the Rothschild banking fortune after climbing through her bedroom window while her children slept nearby.
Police are hunting burglars who scaled the wall of Kate Rothschild’s £4million house and made off with all her gems.
The haul included her wedding and engagement rings from her former marriage to financier and environmentalist Ben Goldsmith.
Miss Rothschild, 35, a music producer, was at a launch party to promote a book co-written by Mr Goldsmith’s second wife, the food writer Jemima Jones, at the time of the raid on Wednesday evening last week.
When she returned home at 2am the next day with her boyfriend, fashion entrepreneur Paul Forkan, she didn’t realise she had been burgled until she found she could not get into her bedroom, which had been locked from the inside by the intruders.
Mr Forkan, who is the co-founder of fashion chain Gandys, had to climb through the bedroom window to unlock the door before they discovered her jewels had been taken.
The burglars were so quiet they failed to disturb Miss Rothschild’s dog, or her children Frank, 12, and Isaac, ten, who were asleep, along with their babysitter, at the six-bedroom house in Barnes, south-west London.
Among the stolen items in a pink box were sentimental pieces belonging to her father Amschel, a banker who hanged himself in Paris in 1996 when she was 13.
Also taken were an antique diamond and enamel dragonfly brooch, a gold, ruby and diamond retro bracelet, a gold chain bracelet, a wedding ring engraved with the names Ben and Kate, and a diamond cushion- shaped single stone engagement ring in a platinum setting.
Miss Rothschild, who also has a 14-year- old daughter called Iris, hit the news in 2012 after Mr Goldsmith found texts between her and her lover, the New Orleans rapper Jay Electronica, whom she was managing.
In the ensuing row, Mr Goldsmith is said to have
‘Took every single thing of value’
slapped her, resulting in a fonnal police caution and the end of their marriage. To compound the pain of their split, the pair then engaged in a public spat on Twitter. But since divorcing in 2013, they have settled their differ-ences, and Mr Goldsmith has found happiness with his second wife, a former model turned caterer to the stars. Yesterday, he said the raid had left Miss Rothschild devastated, and said she felt ‘violated’ that burglars had rifled through her belongings as her sons slept yards away.
The financier, who is the younger brother of Tory MP Zac Goldsmith and campaigner Jemima Khan, said: `She is really sad at the things that have been lost. She feels like her personal space has been violated. The guy made away with a bunch of stuff that means a lot to my ex-wife, me and the children. That's very sad, but it is a huge relief no one was hurt or terrified, and I hope they catch the guy' He told the London Evening Standard, where his wife is a columnist: 'They took every single thing of value that Kate has, her wedding ring, engagement ring, everything I gave her during our mar-riage, special things from when she was a teenager, things from her father and her grandmother. `These should have been passed on to our daughter, Iris, and to her daughter. `I can't imagine the kind of person that breaks into wom-en's bedrooms to steal their most precious things. I will pay a reward to anyone with useful information.' Miss Rothschild is said to have gone away after the raid. Experts say Miss Roth-schild's jewels will already have been smuggled out of the country and sold for a fraction of their value. Katya Hills, of The Watch Register, which tracks stolen art and jewellery as part of the Art Loss Register, said: `It was a high-profile bur-glary, targeting someone who is very well known and was obviously extremely wealthy. `Normally thieves will try to sell it on as soon as possible after the theft, so I would expect it may well have changed hands already.' Scotland Yard said: 'Police are investigating a burglary in Barnes. A quantity ofjew-ellery was stolen. There have been no arrests.'