Tiara thief who threatened to cut off Ashley Cole’s fingers faces jail
Gang convicted over string of heists
A BURGLAR who stole a £3.5million tiara and threatened to cut ex-England footballer Ashley Cole’s fingers off in a raid on his mansion was yesterday convicted of a string of ‘ruthlessly executed’ robberies.
Kurtis Dilks, 35, was part of a gang that snatched the diamondencrusted Portland Tiara worn at Edward VII’s 1902 coronation and a £275,000 brooch from a Nottinghamshire gallery in November 2018.
Just over a year later he and three others smashed into Mr Cole’s £3million home with a sledgehammer and tied up the ex-Chelsea and Arsenal star in front of his wife and children.
Mr Cole was paraded around his home in just his shorts by the balaclava-clad robbers as they demanded jewellery.
He told police he thought he was going to die, saying: ‘They are going to kill me in front of my kids... put bleach on my face or burn me or set me alight.’ Dilks was armed with pliers and kept saying ‘let’s cut his fingers’, Nottingham Crown Court heard.
He and his associates were caught thanks only to a slice of ‘absolutely
‘They are going to kill me in front of my kids’
fantastic luck’, investigators said. By chance, detectives involved in the probe into the theft of the tiara, described as a ‘national treasure’, raided a jewellers in London’s Hatton Garden that they suspected was involved in selling the items on.
There they discovered a bag of loot, including an FA Cup runners-up medal, expensive watches and jewellery Dilks and his gang stole the night before from the Nottinghamshire home of Hull City footballer Tom Huddlestone.
CCTV footage showed police entered the address just 15 minutes after the bag had been dropped off in May 2019.
With confirmation that a Nottingham-based robbery gang was ferrying loot to London within hours of thefts, officers began monitoring movements of their prime suspects.
By the time Mr Cole was targeted in January 2020, police had recognised the modus operandi of the burglars.
They discovered Dilks’s DNA on a knife and cable ties used to bind Mr Cole, 41, and his wife Sharon Canu, and those left at the scene of another Nottinghamshire raid. The forensic evidence meant that, of the four who entered Mr Cole’s home, Dilks was the only one police were able to identify. But investigators suspect others in the dock with him were among the three outstanding suspects. Their inquiries are ongoing.
Dilks was convicted alongside five others for their roles in a string of ‘ruthlessly executed’ robberies and burglaries from October 2018 to January 2020.
As well as the raid on Mr Cole’s home in Fetcham, Surrey, Dilks and Ashley Cumberpatch, 35, and Andrew MacDonald, 40, were found guilty of conspiring to rob Mr Huddlestone’s wife Joanna Dixon, who was alone with their baby son at their mansion when it was targeted.
The three were convicted of being part of the tiara theft from the Welbeck Estate in Worksop.
The headpiece, which has not been recovered, was created by Cartier after the 6th Duke of Portland commissioned it for his wife to wear at the coronation.
Cumberpatch and MacDonald were also convicted alongside Hatton Garden jewellers Tevfik Guccuk, 39, Sercan Evsin, 25, and co-defendant Christopher Yorke, of converting criminal property after the theft. They will be sentenced next week.