I’ve been so scared since £25m raid, says Tamara
TAMARA Ecclestone revealed she is terrified and “obsessing over security” after her Kensington mansion was ransacked in a £25million heist.
A gang of jewellery thieves was jailed for just over 28 years yesterday for raiding the west London home of the 37-year-old socialite and a number of other high-profile celebrities in December 2019.
Former Chelsea star and football manager Frank Lampard, 43, and his TV host wife Christine, 42, were targeted, along with the former Knightsbridge home of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, the late Leicester City owner, which had been turned into a shrine.
Ms Ecclestone, daughter of billionaire former Formula One chief Bernie, told Isleworth Crown Court in a statement: “It’s been really awful. I’m so scared.
“It just makes me think, what if, if something worse... I’m obsessing over security, the gates and barbed wires, spikes and stuff. It’s not really how I want to live my life.”
Ms Ecclestone, who was on holiday in Lapland with her art gallery owner husband Jay Rutland, 38, and eldest daughter Sophia, seven, when the raid took place, said the loss of gifts, including a wedding present from mother Slavica, “made me really sad”.
The socialite, also mum to Serena, one, added: “A lot of it was personal. It hasn’t been easy.” Mr Rutland said Sophia “asks me and Tamara if the burglars are coming back. I feel anger they have stolen from us, fear they could come back and feel sadness”.
Italian nationals Jugoslav Jovanovic, 24, Alessandro Maltese, 45, and Alessandro Donati, 44, admitted the plots. Jovanovic was jailed for nine years for conspiracy to burgle and two years for money laundering. Donati and Maltese were jailed for eight years and nine months for conspiracy to burgle. Judge Martin Edmunds QC said the gang had chosen their targets because of the “celebrity of their occupants”.
Mr Lampard said the raid on their Chelsea home had a “major impact”. He said: “Neither Christine nor I are sleeping too well as a consequence.” Christine said: “I am much more fearful of being alone in my own home.”
Most of the items stolen in the raids, amounting to £26million and described as the biggest in the UK, have never been recovered.