I was taken for clown over jewellery theft, says Cold Feet star
FAY RIPLEY has revealed she was questioned over a jewellery theft while working as a clown after her employers attempted to frame her in an insurance scam.
The Cold Feet actress said she was set up by parents who had booked her as an entertainer for a children’s party while she was studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Ripley, 54, recalled the incident while speaking to Jay Rayner on his “Out to Lunch” podcast. She said: “I had done a party and my clown name was ‘Miss Chief ’. I did a kids’ party over in Wimbledon I think, and it was in a big house and the thing I remembered was they tipped me very heavily and I was very pleased about that.
“[At one point] I went ‘who wants to go to the toilet’ and they said ‘you can’t use the downstairs toilet, could you go through the bedroom – there is an en suite through the bedroom’.” Ripley added: “Next day, knock at the door, six big burly policemen, to search my house and look for £75,000 worth of diamonds and jewellery. I don’t think I was taken in for questioning but it got really scary and I mean when they saw me and saw my Harry the Hedgehog puppet from my puppet show, they were like, ‘I don’t think this Miss Chief is nicking £75,000 of jewellery.’
“It turned out it was an insurance job and they [the parents] had buried it in the garden and had set me up. The loo downstairs was working – it was like an episode of Midsomer Murders.”
She said: “They actually arrested the parents and I don’t think it was even the kid’s birthday.”