UK Incidents of Captains of Industry Being Targeted
While the UK is, in general, a safe country, there is a criminal element who are not shy about robbing others, often with great violence
Being at the pinnacle of success has many benefits, but also a few drawbacks. One of these pitfalls is that if you drive a prestige car, live in a gorgeous house and wear the most beautiful clothes. Some people are willing to do whatever it takes to take these valuables from you.
These people may have visited your home in a service capacity, been tipped off that you may have a lot of valuables by said person. They may have seen your name on the UK Rich List or seen a media article about your achievements. They may even have been watching you or a member of your family for some time. Whatever the case may be, targeting you may on the face of it seem a very good idea, to get some easy money.
It’s disturbing that we often hear in the media the line that there needs to be a “redistribution of wealth”. Now I do love to give back to society as in charitable donations, just between you and me, I give 50% of the company’s profits to charity. But it’s our call what amount and to which charities we chose to support. Notice how these media experts are all for redistributing other people’s wealth. Sorry, I’m beginning to rant a bit here, bellow I’ve listed a few news articles of what’s happened in this great country.
A retired businessman, 66, and his wife, 64, had BOILING water poured over them
A retired businessman, 66, and his wife, 64, had BOILING water poured over them by armed robbers who threatened to kill their grandchildren as they tortured them
Husband and wife in their 60s were left with ‘life-changing’ injuries
They are ‘traumatised’ and are being treated at specialist burns unit
Police said three men broke into the victims’ home and tortured them
Couple were also threatened with a knife and beaten up by a gang
By Chris Greenwood for the Daily Mail and Lucy Crossley for Mail Online
Armed robbers poured boiling water over two pensioners they had taken hostage in their home.
The two-hour ordeal left the victims – aged in their 60s and married for 40 years – with horrific facial burns.
Three masked men brandishing knives burst into their house as they watched television.
The entrepreneur behind Phones4U Mr Caudwell was clubbed with an iron bar
The entrepreneur behind Phones4U Mr Caudwell was clubbed with an iron bar and his girlfriend Claire Johnson, 45, assaulted by masked robbers who burst into the property.
The raiders escaped with hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of cash and jewelry in the raid which left Mr Caudwell with a deep gash to his head.
Rich lists are a database for criminals, say police
John Monckton: Targeted
By Andrew Alderson, Charlotte McDonald-Gibson and Nina Goswami
Lists of the wealthiest people in Britain published by national newspapers are providing criminals with an “intelligence database” for targeting multi-millionaire businessmen, police believe.
Scotland Yard has received a complaint from a businessman picked out by a convicted killer after his name appeared in a newspaper’s annual list of the nation’s 1,000 wealthiest people.
The man, who has children and several million-pound homes but asked not to be identified, went to the police after he became alarmed by evidence at the Old Bailey trial of Damien Hanson, 24, who was accused of murdering the financier John Monckton at his home in Chelsea.
The court was told how Hanson had a copy of The Sunday Times Rich List and the Mail on Sunday’s Rich Report, and other newspaper clippings on several top businessmen, they included the Duke of Westminster, the property owner; Bernie Ecclestone, the boss of Formula 1 racing; Peter Wood, the chairman of Ensure insurance; and Paul Tucker, the executive director of the Bank of England.
Hanson’s dossier – found at his bail hostel in south London – showed he had “an obsession with the rich”. He had even planned crimes while he was in prison, using the internet to find information on potential victims.
The court heard that Hanson began following affluent women on shopping trips in Chelsea and Fulham. It is believed he spotted Mrs Monckton at the Via Venise shoe shop in the King’s Road. A business card from the shop was found in his hostel room.
The jury was also told that he had scrawled down the number plate of a wealthy woman who regularly drove to London in her Mercedes to visit her daughters. The woman was unaware that she was now a target.
Last night, senior Scotland Yard officers said they shared the concerns of celebrities and businessmen that rich lists and other articles giving personal details encouraged criminals to target people.
“It doesn’t make any sense to give this sort of detailed information about wealthy people which could be used by those with illegal intentions,” said one officer. “It gives an intelligence database for anyone looking for rich pickings.”
The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that concerns over details published by newspapers have been raised with police by the businessman, who appears in the top 500 of The Sunday Times Rich List and is worth more than £100 million.
“The whole thing has been pretty alarming,” a spokesman for the businessman said of the evidence at the Old Bailey. “This is a very distressing thing for him. He didn’t have a choice [about being on the rich list].”
It is understood that the details given in the lists and business profiles that particularly upset the businessman include the exact road in which people live, the restaurants they use and points such as where someone goes for an early-morning swim.
The brutality of the murder of Mr Monckton, 49, a brilliant banker and devoted family man, shocked the nation. Hanson and his accomplice for the robbery, Elliot White, also 24, tricked their way into the family’s home before Hanson produced a knife and stabbed Mr Monckton eight times. He was convicted on Thursday of murdering Mr Monckton. Hanson was also found guilty of attempting to kill Mr Monckton’s wife, Homeyra, 46, who was stabbed twice and left near to death. The robbers fled with jewels worth nearly £4,500.
White, a childhood friend of Hanson’s, admitted robbery. On Friday, the jury found him not guilty of the murder of Mr Monckton, but guilty of his manslaughter. The jury will return to consider a further charge against White of attempting to murder Mrs Monckton.
Serious concerns have now been raised over why Hanson, a violent serial criminal since the age of 14, should have been released six years early by the parole board from a 12-year sentence for a previous attempted murder.
His early release came despite the fact that he had been judged to pose a 91 percent risk of violent re-offending in a particular assessment test by the Prison Service. However, the assessment panel from the Parole Board, made up of three volunteers, came to the opposite conclusion.
As soon as the trial ends, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, is expected to order an inquiry into why Hanson was released early and subjected to the minimal supervision.
Now some senior officers, along with wealthy businesspeople and celebrities, hope there will be a public debate too on whether there should be any mandatory or self-imposed restrictions on information in rich lists.
Most accept that this is a delicate area, mainly as the UK has no specific privacy laws and the country values a press uninhibited by the restrictions in many other countries.
This is, however, not the first time that violent criminals have used published information to target victims. A similar gang used Who’s Who, which provides a potted biography of Britain’s most influential people, to target potential victims in Edinburgh’s affluent suburbs. Those in Who’s Who, however, supply their own information.
Four men known as the Rolex gang went on a three-week crime spree targeting London’s wealthy suburbs. Two years later Bernie Ecclestone’s wife, Slavica, was robbed of her Rolex watch and a £60,000 ring when she was mugged outside her London home.
The couple held at gunpoint by raiders escape after wife fakes heart attack
A couple was held at gunpoint, pistol whipped and threatened with being shot dead during a 30-minute attack at their secluded home.
The couple held at gunpoint by raiders escape after wife fakes a heart attack
Lesley Eaton, left, faked a heart attack while her husband, Graham, was being subjected to a baseball bat attack.
The robbers only escaped from the converted two-storey barn after Lesley Eaton faked a heart attack while her husband, Graham, was being subjected to a baseball bat attack.
The three balaclava-clad men, described as “cowards” by Mr Eaton, escaped with about £1,000 in cash, some cheques, and several family Christmas presents.
During the burglary, Mr Eaton, 54, was hit around the legs with the baseball bat and was tied up with the cord of a hairdryer.
His wife, also 54, had a knife held to her throat, and the butt of a pistol smashed into her left eye.
The couple, who run a successful horticultural business, were convinced they would be tortured and killed during the raid at their £750,000 home in Ashington, near Wimborne, Dorset.
The Eatons, who have two grown-up children, suffered black-eyes and injuries to their legs and their heads.
Mr Eaton said: “I can look after myself but I will never forgive them for what they did to my wife. I just want to get revenge for that and want to meet them man to man and see what they are really made of. I would kill them and I have told police that.”
The Eatons were watching television at their home when the raiders confronted them at 10.40pm on Friday.
Mr Eaton said: “The men were swearing and shouting ‘give us your money’.
“They were dressed from head to foot in black and kept shouting but I said we didn’t have any money.
“I was hit over the head with their gun and they began hitting me in the legs with a baseball bat.
“I didn’t feel the pain at the time as the adrenaline was pumping but I did think he was going to break my legs.
“Then one said: ‘that will heal but everything we do from now on won’t heal’ – he then kept saying he would shoot me.”
Meanwhile Mrs Eaton was taken to another room where she could hear her husband being beaten.
She said: “I was frightened as I didn’t know what they were going to do to him then suddenly one of the men came up and held a knife to my throat.
She added: “I had a gun pushed into my eye and then pointed at my head. I thought they were going to pull the trigger – I thought I was going to die.”
Mrs Eaton then faked a heart-attack and rolled herself on to the floor.
Her husband said: “Lesley started to make out that she wasn’t breathing properly so I caught on and said she had a heart condition. She rolled off her seat and curled up on the floor so I shouted that we would have to get an ambulance.”
