Formula One driver Jenson Button has spoken about the “horrible” robbery that happened while he was holidaying in France, in which two men stole jewellery worth £300,000 while he slept.
Button was on holiday with his wife, Jessica, and friends at a villa in St Tropez when the burglary took place on Monday 3 August. No one was harmed but among the items taken was Button’s wife’s engagement ring, reportedly worth £250,000.
“It was a horrible situation,” he said in Spa, before the F1 season resumes on Sunday.
“It is not a nice feeling knowing that someone is in your room going through your drawers just eight centimetres away from your wife’s head. That’s the horrible bit, really.
“You can replace the money and jewellery, you obviously have the sentimental value of an engagement ring, but it is all replaceable, whereas our health isn’t.”
The McLaren driver, who escaped an attempted armed carjacking in Brazil in 2010, said the incident had caused him and his wife – an Argentinian-Japanese fashion model – to make changes to their personal security.
“When something like that happens, you are obviously going to be more cautious,” he said. “I had the issue in Brazil a few years ago, so you do worry. It is sad you have to worry but we have taken certain measures so that we feel more secure.”
In the immediate aftermath of the event a spokesmen for Button had suggested the burglars may have pumped gas into the house to incapacitate the residents. But police, who took blood tests from the victims – the results of which have yet to be revealed – played down the suggestion.
Equally, experts have since argued that it would be very hard to achieve the concentration of gas required to render someone unconscious in these circumstances.
However gas has been used in similar robberies. In 2006 the footballer Patrick Vieira was the victim of a burglary at his home in Cannes, when gas was pumped in via the air-conditioning system to ensure he and his family slept.
“It was strange that no one woke up and one of the officers we spoke to said that we might have been gassed,” said Button.
“It does not matter either way to us. Someone burgled our house while we were in it. It does not matter whether we were gassed or not, we are all here safe and well, and that is the most important thing, but it is amazing that we did not realise what was happening.”
