£4m jewels haul in smash-and-grab

A £4 million raid on a West End jeweller's is believed to be the biggest smash-and-grab in British history.

The theft at David Morris in Bond Street - whose customers include David and Victoria Beckham, Sir Elton John and members of the royal family - occurred in daylight in front of hundreds of shoppers.

It follows a string of thefts from jewellers and antique and art dealers in the area.

Two men used sledgehammers to break the window display and snatch diamonds, rings and necklaces before making off in a car just before 11am on Saturday.

Staff at the shop, which supplied the jewels for the James Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever, chased the thieves - two white men - and got the registration number of the grey Nissan Sunny getaway car, stolen a few days earlier in Greenford and found abandoned in Curzon Street an hour after the raid.

Flying Squad officers are looking at the possibility that the raid was linked to a £160,000 theft of jewels from Harvey Nichols department store on Christmas Day.

Thieves are using increasingly brazen methods to steal goods from West End shops.

Sometimes they stand outside art dealers' premises, posing as the owner, and dupe delivery men into giving them works of art.

A dealer in New Bond Street recently had a £65,000 George Richmond painting stolen.

The thieves were captured on CCTV camera ripping the work - Isaac Going Forth to Meditate at Eventide - from the wall and walking out of the Fine Art Gallery with it in a carrier bag.

In October a £25,000 bronze of Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaevich, commander of the Russian army in the First World War, was grabbed from a window display in Piccadilly Arcade.

Earlier this month burglars crept across rooftops to steal £250,000 worth of Far Eastern artefacts.

New Bond Street jeweller's Bentley and Skinner has been hit twice by raiders in the last year.

Police are also investigating a burglary at the home of double Oscar winner Dame Maggie Smith in Chelsea last Friday.

The 67-year-old actress lost jewellery of "sentimental value".

Anyone with information on the Bond Street theft should call Scotland Yard on 020 7230 2061 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.