WEST END JEWEL THEFT

Southland Times, Issue 23392, 27 December 1937, Page 7

WEST END JEWEL THEFT

MAYFAIR MEN ARRESTED LONDON, December 23. The Daily Mail says that the four men arrested after the attack on a Bond street jeweller on December 21 are residents of Mayfair and are well known in society. One of them is David Wilmer, aged 24, a son of Brigadier Eric Wilmer. In addition to Wilmer, the following were remanded for a week at Westminster for alleged robbery with violence:— Robert Harley, aged 26, a journalist. Peter Jenkins, aged 23, of independent means. John Lonsdale, aged 24, an agent. Counsel for Wilmer, Jenkins and Lonsdale denied that they had used or approved violence. Bail was requested only on behalf of Lonsdale and was fixed at £lOOO. After booking a room at a West End hotel, three fashionably dressed and well-spoken young men telephoned a firm of Bond street jewellers, asking it to send a representative with a selection of diamond and platinum rings and giving the name of a well-known Continental buyer. The representative arrived with 10 rings and was displaying them when he was suddenly attacked and beaten unconscious, upon which the men, pocketing nine rings, valued at £16,000, strolled quietly out of the hotel into a waiting car. T#e representative was discovered an hour later with serious head injuries, but he had managed to retain one of the rings. A reward of £l5OO was offered for information leading to the apprehension of the thieves.