Raiders 'took £5m in jewels'

Thieves may have taken as much as £5million worth of jewellry in their raid on Harvey Nichols, a director of the Knightsbridge store has admitted.

Patrick Hanley, 61, one of three executive directors, said he is still in a state of "shock" but is clinging to the hope that some of the store's most exclusive pieces may have been missed.

Mr Hanley said: "It was clearly a very well-thought out heist and not some kind of impulsive smash and grab. Some of the pieces are unique and worth several hundred thousand pounds. However, most individual pieces are kept in secondary storage, normally a safe.

"I haven't seen the extent of the theft yet, so I don't know which pieces are missing but if it was a number of those very precious items, then £1million may turn out to be a very modest sum.

"The real cost could be several million pounds, perhaps £5million. At this point we haven't been through a stocktake, but we will know the true cost tomorrow."

A back door at the store was unlocked and the alarm was off when three masked and armed men struck at 2am on Christmas Day, taking the security guards by surprise and tying them up.

Mr Hanley, speaking from his home in Rickmansworth, said the raid had obviously-been timed for when the fewest staff would be on duty at the store. "There would have been around five or six cleaners, cleaning each floor and two security guards at the time. This is because the shop would have been closed for two days.

"The robbery must have been planned a long time in advance by someone who knew what they were doing. The robbers would have had to enter through the back door because the only alternative would have been smashing through the store's very thick glass front doors."

Mr Hanley denied that the store might not receive compensation because the back door was open and the alarm was off.

"Harvey Nichols is a 24-hour operation and there are always people in the building night and day," he said. "The alarms work on a floor-by-floor basis. When there are people on one floor, the alarm is deactivated.

"This was the case when the robbers arrived. They must have known the alarms would be off because the cleaners or security guards were patrolling that level. But there will certainly be CCTV footage and perhaps that will yield some clues."