Police have made three arrests after armed robbers riding mopeds raided a luxury watch shop in central London.
Officers were called at 10.32am on Tuesday after a group of males with weapons smashed a window of the Hour House in Duke Street, near Oxford Street, before stealing goods and fleeing. They abandoned a moped at the scene.
“Officers attended, including specialist firearms colleagues,” the force said on Twitter on Tuesday.
“A man aged in his 30s has been treated by LAS [London ambulance service] for an eye injury sustained after the shop window was smashed.”
Three men were subsequently arrested on suspicion of armed robbery and remain in custody at a north London police station, police later said.
Police are working at the scene of a smash and a grab at a store in #DukeStreet #Westminster - officers were called at 10:32hrs - A number of males armed with weapons are reported to have driven to the premises on mopeds and smashed a window before stealing goods and fleeing.
— MPS Westminster (@MPSWestminster) May 28, 2019
A section of Duke Street in front of the shop remained cordoned off with police tape on Tuesday afternoon and officers were standing guard. The glass fronts of cabinets inside the shop were smashed and at least one shelf appeared empty.
Spencer Matthews, known from the TV show Made in Chelsea, posted on Instagram that he had been in the shop with two friends at the time of the robbery, and was forced to hide in the vault.
“I just had to hide in a safe. More like a vault downstairs while this watch shop the Hour House on Duke Street got smashed to pieces by armed robbers,” he wrote.
“These guys drive a scooter through the glass and start battering the shop with hammers, big huge hammers, wearing helmets.
“We’re in the back of the shop looking at them, sprint downstairs, hide in the vault until all the noise passes. Come upstairs and the place is just battered. Like I mean gonzo. All the watches gone.”
Matthews, 30, first found fame in 2011 after appearing in the first series of Made in Chelsea, a “structured reality” show broadcast on E4.
One man, who works close to the shop and asked to remain anonymous, said he saw “about six blokes” wearing balaclavas and helmets, one of whom was holding a machete.
Paul Starck, a Thames Valley fire service engineer, said one of the men came over and banged a machete against the window of his vehicle on the driver’s side, smashing the glass.
“He was trying to get through the window at me because he knew I was on the phone to police,” he said. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. He had no care in the world, the chap.”
Starck said he saw about five people go into the shop. “One put a sledgehammer through the window in the front first of all, then it must have been three or four of them ran inside with weapons,” he said.
