’I didn’t go there to tie people up’
A FILM and TV extra accused of conspiring to take part in a terrifying Cheshire robbery says he had no idea what he was getting involved in until it was too late.
Kimpton Mativenga, 31, is charged with conspiracy to rob in relation to a break-in at a house belonging to Robert McKendrick, in Alderley Edge, on October 6 last year.
Three men tied up Mr McKendrick’s wife, Priya, and their daughter, Scarlett, and subjected them to an ordeal for several hours. They left with around £100,000 worth of property, Chester Crown Court heard.
According to the prosecution Mr McKenna’s ex-lover, Russian busi- nesswoman Karine Solloway, hired a man named in court as Paul Prior - an ex-soldier medically discharged from the Army following a diagnosis of PTSD - to carry out the robbery with the aim of recovering money Mr McKendrick owed her.
However Ms Solloway, 58, of Park Mews Crescent West in London, also denies the charge, claiming she hired Prior to carry out surveillance and he conducted the robbery without her knowledge for his own financial gain.
Prior pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob and was jailed, but Mr Mativenga denies the charge on the basis that he had no knowledge of what Prior was planning.
Giving evidence in court on Wednesday, Mr Mativenga said Prior had contacted him saying he needed help carrying out some surveillance for a ‘high profile client’ in Manchester.
Mr Mativenga, of Tanners Close in St Albans said he and Prior had been friends since 2010, when they met while Mr Mativenga was working as a doorman, and that he was struggling for money at the time so decided to take him up on it.
As well as security work, he said he had variously worked at a mental health hospital and as a film and television extra and model, but was trying to support his mum after she lost her job, and his sister who suffers from brain damage.
He said that having travelled to the Alderley Edge area, Prior then said his client wanted him to go to the house of someone who owed them money. Mr Mativenga said when they arrived at the McKendrick’s house he went inside to see Prior and the other man tying up Mrs McKendrick and Scarlett he ‘just froze.’
“I was in shock,” he said. “That was not what they told me. That is not what we do. I work hard for my money. I thought I was helping a friend who was in need. I did not go there to tie people up.”
He said he asked Prior what he was doing, but that he swore at him and told him to shut up. “I have never seen Paul like that,” he added. “He changed and he was very hostile towards me. I was very scared.”
He claims Prior ordered him to wait upstairs with Scarlett, which he did, and that he tried to reassure her he wasn’t there to hurt her.
When asked why he didn’t contact the police, he said Prior had threatened him and his family, saying ‘I know where you live.’
“These people are military trained,” he said. “I was in fear for my life.”
He further maintains he did not take anything from the house, and did not benefit from the robbery.
Prior was arrested in November last year after police traced him through an eBay account, and Mativenga was arrested weeks later.
The case continues.