A luxury watch salesman killed himself just hours after he was accused of ‘not putting up enough of a fight’ when the shop was robbed of £1.4 million worth of designer timepieces, a court heard today.
Salesman Oliver White, 27, was put in a chokehold and bound with cable ties while two men stole the ‘very high-value’, ‘uninsured’ watches – including a £30,000 Rolex Sky Dweller – from 247 Kettles in Richmond, west London, on May 25 last year.
The following day he was summoned to an ‘intense’ meeting with the store’s owners – ‘his friends’ Conor Thornton and Joe Riley – and another investor where they implied that the ‘hard-working’ manager was ‘somehow involved’ in the heist.
Devastated Mr White was left feeling he had ‘somehow let others down’, and transferred the maximum £14,000 from his life savings to 247 Kettles shortly before taking his own life, the court heard.
Prosecuting Counsel Edward Brown told the jury: ‘The robbery meant that there was of course a huge loss and the watches were not insured, this was because of an earlier burglary in 2020 insurance was in practical terms impossible – either actually not possible or the premium was so high as to be prohibitive.
‘It must have been a pretty intense meeting.
‘He [Oliver White] was to tell his girlfriend that during the meeting he had been accused by the other man of not putting up enough of a fight, something apparently the others, his friends, did not disagree with! This devastated him.
The luxury watch salesman killed himself just hours after he was accused of ‘not putting up enough of a fight’ when the shop was robbed of £1.4 million worth of designer time pieces, a court heard today
Salesman Oliver White, 27, was put in a chokehold and bound with cable ties while two men stole the ‘very high-value’, ‘uninsured’ watches – including a £30,000 Rolex Sky Dweller – from 247 Kettles in Richmond, west London, on May 25 last year
The following day he was summoned to an ‘intense’ meeting with the store’s owners – ‘his friends’ Conor Thornton and Joe Riley – and another investor where they implied that the ‘hard-working’ manager was ‘somehow involved’ in the heist (pictured with his girlfriend)
‘It was later on the May 26 that he went missing – in fact not long after he sent the £14,000 or so over [to 247 Kettles].
‘Calls to him were not answered and messages not answered.
‘His family and friends became very concerned and later that day, in the evening, his body was found by a friend. He had taken his own life.’
Mr Brown told the court that detectives investigating the £1.4 million heist had exonerated the manager of any involvement and had found ‘nothing whatsoever in any of the evidence… that even raises the suspicion that Oliver White was somehow involved’.
He added: ‘As a person he [Oliver White] had always been careful with his money, he was not in debt, never borrowed money, never gambled, paid his credit card bills on time, paid into a pension – there were no even curious transactions in his financial affairs – nothing.
‘He worked very hard and always went the extra mile if he felt he needed to.’
Earlier in the trial the jury were told that Junior Kunu, 29, from Mitcham, south London, and Mannix Pedro, 37, from Cobham, Surrey, were among at least five men who conspired to carry out the £1.4 million heist of designer watches that have never been recovered.
The total value of the watches that were taken is approximately £1,384,000, a prosecutor told the court yesterday
Mr White had been restrained with cable ties during the raid at 247 Kettles store (pictured) in Richmond, west London, on May 25 last year
Three of the accused alleged accomplices fled the country shortly after the raid as police sought their arrest and remain at large abroad.
In statements to police following the heist on May 25, Mr White told how the raiders had visited the store two days before on the pretext of viewing watches and they had made a second appointment on the day of robbery.
He had prepared trays of watches for them to view, before they ‘lunged’ at him and started ‘grabbing watches’.
He told police how his hands were pinned to his chest, he was bound with cable ties and put in a ‘headlock’ that left ‘red marks’ on his neck.
He said: ‘There was nothing to make me suspect anything was going to happen. Their body language was completely relaxed.
‘[But] after a few minutes they stood up and started grabbing watches.
‘They stole around 30 watches while I was tied up.’
Yesterday the jury was shown shocking CCTV footage of the raid unfolding.
It revealed how Kunu calmly surveyed the highly valuable watches before his accomplice reached over a desk to attack Mr White.
Devastated Mr White was left feeling he had ‘somehow let others down’, and transferred the maximum £14,000 from his life savings to 247 Kettles shortly before taking his own life, the court heard (pictured with his girlfriend)
Mr Brown told the court that detectives investigating the £1.4 million heist had exonerated the manager of any involvement and had found ‘nothing whatsoever in any of the evidence.. that even raises the suspicion that Oliver White was somehow involved’ (Mr White pictured with his girlfriend)
The film showed how the manager’s wrists and ankles were bound with cable ties, before the robbers ‘filled to the gunwales with watches’ calmly walked out of the store.
The jury have been told that Kunu and Pedro played important ‘roles’ in the robbery.
The court heard that the gang began plotting the raid three months before the heist – stealing an Audi 3 to use as a ‘getaway car’ and buying an Audi A5 to use as a ‘switch-over car’. They also obtained a full inventory of stock held at 247 Kettles ahead of the raid.
Mr Brown told the court: ‘They came into the conspiracy with different roles to play – Kunu inside the premises to help out [another man] there in the robbery itself with Pedro helping plan and organise the robbery and the spiriting away of the stolen watches afterwards.
‘It is of course only once the watches have been spirited away that they can be sold and the proceeds distributed. That after all is the whole purpose of a robbery.
‘You will wish not to lose sight of the value of the robbery of the watches – £1.38million. You may be surprised by the value of some of the individual watches but this was on any account a very large cache of very valuable watches – that was not just going to be given over.’
The jury was told that the name of the shop ‘247 Kettles’ referred to the cockney rhyming slang word for watch – which is derived from the term ‘kettle and hob’ which rhymes with ‘fob’, an old-fashioned word for pocket watch.
The trial continues.
