Reality TV star hides in safe as moped gang raid jewellers – and take every watch but his
Reality TV star Spencer Matthews was yesterday caught up in a raid on a luxury watch shop by robbers on mopeds wielding sledgehammers and a machete.
The Made In Chelsea star said he was forced to ‘hide in a safe’ at The Hour House near Oxford Street as the thieves gutted the store, stealing all the watches – except for his.
The 30-year-old TV performer said he was at the shop to collect a 1991 vintage Rolex Daytona Zenith timepiece, worth up to £15,000, when the front window was smashed by a gang of six robbers on four mopeds.
‘I just had to hide in a safe. More like a vault downstairs while this watch shop The Hour House on Duke Street got smashed to pieces by armed robbers,’ he said on Instagram after the mid-morning raid.
‘These guys drive a scooter through the glass and start battering the shop with hammers, big huge hammers, wearing helmets. We’re in the back of the shop looking at them, sprint downstairs, hide in the vault until all the noise passes. Come upstairs and the place is just battered. like I mean Gonzo. All the watches gone.’
Mr Matthews, who is also the co-founder of diamond jewellers eden Rocks, posted pictures on the social media site of the glass- strewn shop and its smashed cabinets. Returning to the shop floor, he and two friends began looking for the vintage watch that he came to collect.
‘We were looking around and I’m just thinking f***ing hell the thing that I’ve been waiting for has obviously just been nicked so I’m going to have to go and get another one,’ he said. ‘lo and behold we look around and on the floor amongst all the rubble and the glass and stuff there’s one watch in the entire shop and it’s mine. Now if that’s not luck I don’t know what is.’
Mr Matthews later added: ‘It was... exciting’s the wrong word – but it certainly got the pulse going at the time.’
Another witness, Paul Starck, said he had ‘never been so scared in my life’, as one of the gang attacked his van window with a machete. The Thames Valley fire service engineer was driving near to the shop when the group did a U-turn on the road close to him, prompting him to call the police.
‘He was trying to get through the window at me because he knew I was on the phone to police,’ the 43-year-old, from Sandhurst, Berkshire, said. ‘He ran after a load of people that were standing here first of all, then he went for someone in a black car.’ The Metropolitan were called to Police the luxury tweeted store, that near officers to Selfridges, at 10.32am yesterday. It is thought they arrived about five minutes after the gang fled, having left a moped on the pavement. One man in his thirties was treated for an eye injury sustained after the shop window was smashed. Detectives had made three arrests last night. Inquiries continue.