Ian Towning said incident left him depressed and often he often cries uncontrollably – Facebook
Balaclava-clad thieves stole £365,000 of jewellery and antiques from an antiques dealer who has regularly appeared on television after hitting him on the head with a clawhammer, a court was told.
James Dixon, 43, and Thomas Loring, 41, raided a jewellery shop in Chelsea, south-west London, owned by Ian Towning – who has appeared on shows including ITV’s Dickinson’s Real Deal – in March last year.
The pair stole jewellery and antiques from the shop, named Bourbon Hanbury, worth up to £365,000 as part of a “campaign of burglaries” conducted between March and June, Kingston Crown Court was told.
On Wednesday, Dixon and Loring were sentenced to 17 and 14 years in prison respectively for conspiring to rob and conspiring to burgle.
The court heard that on March 26, the career criminals committed the “brazen robbery” on the Sydney Street jewellery shop armed with a clawhammer and sledgehammer.
Dixon used the clawhammer to strike a security guard on the head before the pair “smashed through the locked door of the shop”, Judge Marcus Tregilgas-Davey said.
Mr Towning, 76, and his co-owner Les Barrett, 77, were then attacked.
“You both then smashed through the display cases taking items of jewellery and antiques,” the judge said. “Dixon, you then punched Mr Towning again before you fled the shop with the items, got into a getaway car and sped off.”
The pair stole items including sapphire and diamond necklaces, one of which was worth £44,000.
Left in fear
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Mr Towning said: “It’s left me with a fear of social situations… I am depressed and often cry uncontrollably when I think about what happened.”
The court was also told of four other robberies Dixon and Loring attempted or succeeded in committing last year.
On March 11, they failed in an attempt to take £25,000 in from a Post Office cash-in-transit worker, while on May 9 they burgled more then £3,000 worth of tobacco from a Shell Garage in Gravesend, Essex, before driving off in a stolen Skoda.
On another occasion, they robbed £5,000 from a Poundland in Sidcup, south-east London, and in June they took more than £8,000 from a Post Office, on the Old Kent Road.
Dixon, who had 26 previous convictions for 50 offences, pleaded guilty to conspiring to rob and conspiring to burgle and was handed an extended sentence of 17 years.
Loring, who had 23 convictions for 53 previous offences, was convicted of the same offences as Dixon after a trial and was given a 14-year sentence.