Masked raiders snatch £1m gems as tycoon’s wife and son were home
BALACLAVA- CLAD raiders broke into the mansion of a multi-millionaire and stole his wife’s £1million collection of jewellery and antiques.
They scaled a 7ft wall to creep into the £5million home of biotechnology tycoon Sir Christopher Evans, who is worth £158million.
His wife Lady Anne Evans, 58, and son Calum, 20, were in the 30room Cotswolds property at the time of the raid in Bibury, Gloucestershire, on Monday evening.
CCTV footage shows the intruders breaking into the conservatory before heading to the master bedroom, where they plundered jewellery, silver and antique ceramics. They wore blue surgical gloves and moved quietly to avoid alerting the family’s five dogs and two parrots. Sir Christopher is thought to have been away. Among hundreds of stolen items was a pair of Wedgwood Fairyland vases, a pearshaped diamond ring from Boodle and Dunthorpe and handbags by Gucci and Chanel.
The haul was stuffed into log baskets and loaded into a dark- coloured Audi S5. Neighbours said they saw four men speed off in the direction of Cirencester.
They are thought to have made their escape when Lady Anne took her dog Scooter for a walk.
She fought back tears as she made a desperate appeal for help to catch the thieves, saying: ‘They have wiped out my entire jewellery collection. It’s serious money. There were hundreds of items and a lot of them were unbelievably special. Me and my son were in the house at the time. We were so lucky we didn’t come across them, these guys were prepared.
‘I feel so devastated and violated.’ Their daughter Rhianna, 24, said: ‘If they are doing something as large-scale as this I dread to think what they would have done had they encountered someone.’ Sir Christopher, 60, runs Merlin Biosciences, which manages investments in the biotechnology industry. He has founded more than 20 other life-sciences companies and was knighted for his services to the industry in 2001.
The entrepreneur was listed in 364th place in the 2006 Sunday Times Rich List.
He has been married to Lady Anne for 40 years and the couple have four grown-up children, Connor, Calum, Amy and Rhianna.
Their 1840s Gothic mansion was designed by English architect Anthony Salvin and was listed as being worth £3million in 2000. In 2010, Sir Christopher said: ‘This has to be a home where my wife and kids and I can be really happy. For me to be really happy I have to be working on scientific things all the time and ...all that has to be done separate from the family. I think I’ve got the layout right.’
‘I feel devastated and violated’