Former Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone has suggested that a raid on his daughter’s £70m London home last week was an “inside job”.
Every piece of Tamara Ecclestone’s £50m jewellery collection is said to have been taken from the tightly guarded mansion in Kensington, The Sun reports.
“The thieves struck a few hours after Ms Ecclestone had boarded a private jet with her husband, Jay Rutland, and their five-year-old daughter, Sophia, for a Christmas holiday in Lapland,” adds The Times.
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What happened?
Police were called to the heiress’s home, near Hyde Park, shortly after 11pm on Friday, but the thieves escaped before they arrived.
Detective Sergeant Matthew Pountney said officers were alerted by security staff within the 57-room mansion, who reported “three males being present inside the property”.
The burglars are believed to have broken in through the garden and reportedly spent 50 minutes emptying safes before fleeing through an open window.
The gang “got away despite a guard reportedly sitting in Tamara’s CCTV room at the property”, which is situated on an exclusive street dubbed “Billionaire’s Row” that has “24-hour security patrols, multiple checkpoints and armed police at either end to protect the six embassies there”, says the Daily Mail.
Sources have suggested that “one guard had decided to leave the property shortly before the raid and another was reported to have turned off or ignored sensors in the garden”, the newspaper adds.
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What have the Ecclestones said?
Security experts have “pointed out that Ms Ecclestone had posted on Instagram that the family would be away some hours before the burglary”, says The Times.
But speaking to the Daily Mail on Monday, Bernie Ecclestone said: “I don’t have all the facts but given all the security at the house, I’m assuming it was an inside job.
“It’s an awful thing to happen just after she had left the house to go to Lapland. Although maybe it’s better that she wasn’t in at the time.”
Hours after the heist, Tamara shared a Bible passage, Luke 8.17, on her Instagram that read: “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.”
Metropolitan Police detectives are examining CCTV footage and say they are keeping an “open mind around other lines of inquiry”.
