Three members of the gang who grabbed £1.1million worth of watches from a tragic shop manager who killed himself were jailed for a total of 51 years today.
Oliver White, 27, was restrained with cable ties during the raid at 247 Kettles store in Kew Road, Richmond, on May 25, 2024.
Mannix Pedro, 37, Kyle Mehmet, 40, and Michael Holmes, 34, were locked up for 20 years, 18 years and 13 years respectively for their roles in the robbery.
Salesman Mr White was so devastated by allegations that he did nothing to resist the raiders that he killed himself the following day in the woods where he had played as a boy.
Seventy uninsured watches, including a £30,000 Rolex Sky Dweller, were taken while the business owners, Conor Thornton and Joe Riley, were in New York.
They flew back to London for an ‘intense’ meeting with Mr White the next day, attended by a third businessman, Fred Sines.
Watch dealer Sines, 37, was handed a suspended jail sentence earlier this year for trying to sell the £4.3m gold toilet stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019.
His father is multi-millionaire caravan tycoon Maurice Sines who previously had a close association with Ireland’s most notorious criminals, the Kinahan Cartel.
Oliver White (pictured), 27, was restrained with cable ties during the raid at 247 Kettles store in Kew Road, Richmond, on May 25 last year. He later took his own life
Kyle Mehmet (front) and Junior Kunu (back) are seen during the heist at the jewellery store in Richmond. Mehmet was found guilty but Kunu was cleared
The total value of the watches that were taken is approximately £1.1million
Jurors heard claims Kettles was run by Maurice and Fred Sines as a ‘front for organised crime’ while £100,000 bounties have been placed on the heads of the robbers.
Mr White offered the owners the £14,000 he had been saving up to put a deposit down on a flat with his girlfriend Alana Dredge to compensate for the stolen jewellery.
Jurors were shown CCTV of the Rolex raid but footage of the meeting with Sines and the owners the next day has gone missing.
Mr White then travelled to the woods in Shepperton, where he grew up and took his own life.
Mehmet had tied up and held Mr White in a headlock while Kunu swiped the watches, including a Rolex Sky Dweller.
Holmes took part in a ‘dry run’ at the shop two days before the raid.
Kunu was cleared of conspiracy to rob after he claimed the heist was staged, Mr White was in on it and so no force was used.
He said he was offered £5,000 to put the watches into a bag and if it had been a genuine robbery Mr White could have hit the panic alarm.
Businessman Pedro was described as the ‘general’ who organised the raid and supplied a stolen Audi as one of several getaway cars. Pedro was convicted of conspiracy to rob by a jury earlier this year.
He had denied any involvement in the plot and said he was in a gym with his girlfriend two days earlier.
Pedro also claimed it may have been an inside job and said: ‘The people I am worried about is Fred Sines, the Kinahans, the cartels, the people saying they are going to kill people on behalf of 247 kettles.
‘Rumour on the street is they robbed themselves.’
Mehmet (pictured) had tied up and held Mr White in a headlock while Kunu swiped the watches, including a Rolex Sky Dweller
Mannix Pedro (left) and Michael Holmes (right) were today jailed for their roles in the robbery
Jurors heard claims 247 Kettles was run by Maurice (left) and Fred Sines (right) as a ‘front for organised crime’
Fred Sines, also known as Fred Doe, was handed a suspended jail sentence last year for trying to sell the £4.8million gold toilet which was stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019
Mehmet claimed he took part in the robbery because he owed £190,000 to ‘serious criminals’ who he referred to as ‘the firm’.
He believed it was an ‘inside job’ but when he learnt there was a £100,000 ‘bounty’ on his head he fled to Turkey with his wife and children.
Mehmet, who has a previous conviction for robbery, returned to the UK and was arrested in March last year. Holmes was also arrested last March.
Mehmet and Holmes, who was also arrested last year, denied but were convicted of conspiracy to rob.
A fifth suspect, Michael Ashman, is still on the run.
Ed Brown, KC, prosecuting, referred to the impact statement written by Mr White’s mother Amy Keane.
‘She described the pain of her loss and the devastation to her life. She described the ongoing emotional turmoil and feelings of helplessness following his senseless death.
‘Not a day passes without her breaking down.’
Ms Dredge said she was expecting to spend the rest of her life with Mr White.
‘They hoped for a family together and she thinks about him every moment and lived with the mental pain every day.’
Mr White had been restrained with cable ties during the raid at the 247 Kettles store (pictured) in Richmond, west London, on May 25 last year
Mr Brown added: ‘His death was a direct and immediate effect of what happened. If it wasn’t the intended result, it was nevertheless the result of the robbery.’
Pedro was jailed for 20 years while powerfully built Mehmet, who appeared in court via videolink from HMP Doncaster, was locked up for 18 years. Holmes, described as a petty criminal, was jailed for 13 years.
Judge Philip Shorrock described it as a ‘commercial robbery of the most serious kind’.
He said Mr White was held in a headlock and tied up.
‘Very significant force was used. It was designed to intimidate him and it did just that. He offered very little resistance.
‘There was some evidence the business was not all it seemed to be and there may be individuals behind it who are serious criminals themselves, or have links to serious criminals.’
He said Mr White was ‘extremely frightened’ after the meeting with the owners when it was suggested he might have taken part in the theft of the watches.
‘He was apprehensive of what his employers might do to him. The question is whether his death was a consequence of the robbery.
‘It is plain he suffered extreme psychological harm as a result of the robbery. The effect of his death to those that knew Oliver White has been profound, undeserved and unnecessary.’
Mr White had prepared trays of watches for Kunu and Bowrage to view believing they were genuine customers on 25 May, 2024.
‘Suddenly they stood up and started grabbing the watches,’ said Mr Brown.
‘Mr White described how one of them grabbed his hands to stop him moving and pinned them across his chest and then had his hands bound using zip ties.
‘He was then put in a headlock. Having done so they left, leaving him in shock and with visible reddening around his neck and wrist.
‘When he was spoken to by the police he still appeared shocked and that he was still processing the events.
‘He was however doing everything to help the police and to recover any watches they could.
‘None of the watches have been recovered and for reasons that will become clear they were not insured.’
Ms Dredge had said in a statement read to the court the accusations that Mr White was somehow in on the raid ‘broke him’.
She said it was ‘clear he loved the work’ at 247 Kettles.
‘Even whilst we were on holiday and at weekends Olly would be working and trying to close deals with his clients.’
After the raid she said Mr White was ‘really shaken up’. ‘He didn’t want to talk about what happened, he hated the fact the video had been posted online,’ she said.
‘He just said he wanted a cuddle.’
Ms Dredge said Sines had pressurised her boyfriend after the robbery.
‘He asked Olly if he wanted to meet him, Joe and Conor in Shepperton. As he left he said he felt really sick and I said to him that he didn’t need to go, but he insisted on going anyway.
‘Olly was gone for about an hour from about midday until 1pm approximately. When he walked through the door he didn’t want to talk to me about the meeting.’
Sines had suggested ‘he didn’t put up much of a fight’ and ‘had something to do with it’.
She said Conor ‘agreed he might have had something to do with the robbery and Joe also said he didn’t know what to think, and couldn’t look Olly in the eyes.
‘When Olly told me this I could see that it broke him as they were two of his best friends who he thought were meant to have his back.
‘They were saying now they didn’t trust him. I said these were meant to be your friends and he said “Yeah, I thought so too.”‘
She said Olly was told to attend another meeting: ‘As Olly was getting dressed I was upset – I said to him I was sorry this had happened to him.
‘Olly told me he loved me and he left in the car. Olly messaged me at 5pm or just before saying “I love you” and then a kiss.
‘I replied saying I love you and that I hope you’re OK, what’s the latest?
‘There were a few messages back and forth – I ended up calling his work phone and his personal phone. I knew something wasn’t right.’
Pedro was arrested a few days after the robbery driving a black Audi SQ5.
He was released on bail and arrested again as he tried to fly out on a one way trip to Marseille with a false passport with a false name.
Kunu was arrested on June 5. He had altered his look, cutting his hair and trimming his beard.
Pedro’s phone was seized and on it was a voice note from a man saying: ‘I want everything’.
He adds: ‘The box and papers for the Kettles [watches] are in there.’
He also said: ‘Don’t play with them when you are in there,’ ‘All the money 155k’, ‘bare jewels,’ ‘Cartier bracelet,’ ‘the dweller,’ ‘Sky Dweller’ and ‘I want everything’.
Pedro told the court suggested there were shadowy characters involved ‘putting hits on people’ and said there were £150,000 bounties on the heads of Kunu and Mehmet.
He added: ‘One person who has committed suicide, but we do not know it is suicide.’
At that point a male member of Mr White’s family yelled from public gallery: ‘Don’t you say that.’
Pedro said: ‘The truth will incriminate people, and put people’s names into something I do not understand. I am not going to do that, that’s not how I was raised.
‘Rumour on the street is they robbed themselves. They gave the go-ahead whether or not Olly knew.
‘Someone gave him the go-ahead to not press the panic alarm, to wait. If you are panicking for your life you’d press the panic button.’
Mr Brown asked Pedro: ‘Are you suggesting Olly White was killed?’
Pedro said: ‘I don’t know. What type of company, legit business starts putting money on people’s lives.
‘How do you know 247 kettles don’t launder money to criminals.’
Sines was one of the investors in 247 Kettles and Pedro claimed his associates put the bounties out on Kunu and Mehmet.
Rupert Bowers, KC, for Holmes questioned in court whether it was ‘a criminal enterprise with Fred Sines and his father behind it?’
Mr Riley replied: ‘No, not at all.’
Mr Brown confirmed during the trial Mehmet, Kunu and Holmes have been issued with ‘threat to life warning notices’ by police after bounties were placed on their heads.
Kunu, of Mitcham, south London, Mehmet, of North Road, Rotherham and Holmes, of Sheffield, all denied conspiracy to rob.
Pedro, of Cobham, Surrey, also denied the charge.
In a statement paying to tribute to her son, Ms Keane, earlier said: ‘I would describe Oliver as a huge character, very warm and a brilliant person.
‘He lit up the room when he entered it and was incredibly kind and caring, he would go above and beyond for anyone. He cared deeply for his family, was a wonderful role model for his little brother, as well as his two sisters.
‘Oliver really wanted to make something of himself, he aspired to buy a house, have a family and was planning for his future and this influenced his decision to work 24/7 as he saw his friends doing well in a business they enjoyed.
‘We know Oliver to be trustworthy and honest. Given the jury have convicted a man of planning and organising the robbery of Oliver, we take this as vindication of our firmly held belief he played no role in this offence and was not implicated in any involvement.
‘We are all absolutely devastated with the loss of our funny, thoughtful and kind son Oliver, our lives will never be the same and we feel this loss every minute of every day.’
Detective Sergeant Matt Hollands, who led the investigation, said: ‘This was an audacious robbery that was several months in the planning. I’m pleased our investigation has resulted in a dangerous offender being convicted.
‘Our work is far from over, and our focus remains finding the three other men involved and putting them before the courts?
‘Throughout this investigation Oliver has been in our thoughts and we have remained committed to securing justice for his family. His death is a tragic reminder that crimes such as robbery have a significant impact on victims.’