Partner Article

Victims of Hatton Garden robbery ‘mainly small businesses’

Rick Marchant, a loss adjuster at Marchant and Marchant Limited, which is currently assessing the financial damage following the Hatton Garden heist last month, said it was “mainly small businesses” that have been affected.

He told the BBC he was dealing with seven clients who had lost items worth up to £2mn in the burglary at Hatton Garden Safety Deposit Company, in London’s famous jewellery quarter.

Police have offered a £20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of all those involved and have released images of the drill that was used to bore a hole into the vault wall.

Mr Marchant told the BBC: “These aren’t extremely wealthy people, for a lot of them their livelihoods have gone. All of us might be forgiven for thinking how audacious, how clever, but what (the gang has) done is ruin the lives of many people within the Hatton Garden jewellery quarter.

“I have been told by individuals I have interviewed that they have had friends and colleagues who work in the quarter with them, grown men, hardened dealers, in sobs - (they) don’t know what to do because of course some haven’t insured at all,

“Their view was it is in a safety deposit box - the key word is safety - it should be OK and of course they have lost everything.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .