Roofer that ‘robbed’ watch salesman who later took his personal life thought £1.1million heist was an inside job, court docket instructed

A roofer has told a court he thought the £1.1million robbery of a watch salesman was an inside job.

Kyle Mehmet, 40, has claimed he took part in the robbery at 247 Kettles in Kew Road, Richmond, on May 25 last year because he owed gangsters £190,000.

Oliver White, who was working in the jewelry store at the time, was restrained with cable ties and held in a headlock while robbers stole over £1million worth of goods from the shop.

He was then accused of not resisting the raiders in an ‘intense’ meeting the next day with the two store owners, Joe Riley and Connor Thornton, and businessman Fred Sines, Woolwich crown court has heard. 

Mr White, 27,  then travelled to the woods in Shepperton – Surrey – and took his own life.

Mehmet restrained Mr White while Junior Kunu, 31, swiped the expensive watches, including a Rolex Sky Dweller.

Michael Holmes, 34, is said to have been part of an aborted robbery at the shop two days earlier.

Giving evidence Mehmet claimed he took part in the robbery because he owed £190,000 to ‘serious criminals’ who he referred to as ‘the firm’.

He told the court: ‘My job was to be the muscle and (Kunu’s) job was to take the watches and put them in the bag.’

Mehmet added that the ‘people who told me to do the job’ assured him it was an inside job with no need for masks.

Daniel Jones, KC, defending, asked him: ‘We can see you grabbed Mr White, how was he?’

Mehmet replied: ‘Scared.’

Mr Jones asked: ‘You say he was scared, did that make you think as to whether it was an inside job or not – did you know?’

Mehmet replied: ‘At the time I didn’t really think.’

Mr Jones asked him: ‘What was the point of grabbing Mr White and tying him up?’

Mehmet explained: ‘I was told to make it look like a job.’

The 40-year-old added that he thought CCTV of the robbery ‘was all going to get wiped.’

Mehmet told the court he was ‘told it’s not going to be a problem, it’s an inside job, so in my eyes anything that I’m doing is going to get wiped out, there’s going to be no come back.’

‘The ties that you used, plastic ties, were they strong?’, asked Mr Jones.

Mehmet answered: ‘They were little flimsy ones, I didn’t want to hurt him, that was just for show.’

After the raid he walked ‘through an alleyway’ towards an Audi A3 where another person was waiting for him, he said.

When asked by his barrister if he knew the person that was waiting for him, Mehmet answered: ‘I don’t want to say’.  

‘Is that person part of “the firm” as you call them?,’ the barrister said.

And Mehmet said again: ‘I don’t want to say.’

Mehmet said he felt ‘real uneasy’ when he found out his face was all over social media in the immediate aftermath of the robbery.

He then learnt that a £100,000 ‘bounty’ had been put on his head, so he told his wife and children to go to Turkey where he would join them later.

Mr Jones asked him when he first found out who had put up a bounty on his head.

Mehmet gestured towards two police officers sat in the public gallery: ‘When these two gentleman, the Flying Squad, give it to us about a week ago’.

Mr Jones said: ‘You told the jury you thought the CCTV was going to be wiped – were you surprised when you saw that that had happened?’

Mehmet said: ‘At that time, as I say, you s*** yourself – my chest went through my body, basically, because at that time, I’m not stupid, I’ve been set up, I knew exactly what had happened, my face is all over the news.

‘I knew at that time I got set up, I was the fall guy for the job’.

Mr Jones asked: ‘Now you have heard everything that you’ve heard, do you know what’s happened, do you know exactly what happened here?’

Mehmet replied: ‘I still think the same – I may have been used because I owed them and they threatened and pressured me to do it.’

He continued: ‘I don’t know if it was an inside job but to me Ollie was just normal. I don’t know how to explain further than I’ve explained it, I just believed I was the fall guy and I don’t know if it was an inside job.’

Businessman Mannix Pedro, 38, had helped plan the raid and supplied a stolen Audi used as a getaway car.

Jurors were told Pedro, of Cobham, Surrey, has already been tried and convicted of conspiracy to rob.

Jurors have also previously heard that Sines was convicted of conspiracy to transfer criminal property after the theft of the 18-carat toilet and handed a suspended sentence at Oxford Crown Court earlier this year. 

Kunu, of Mitcham, south London, Mehmet, of North Road, Rotherham and Holmes, of Rainham, Essex, all deny conspiracy to rob.

The trial continues.