Tamara Ecclestone's husband reveals they weren't insured for £25 million burglary

23 April 2025, 10:43

The husband of Tamara Ecclestone has revealed the couple were not covered for their £25 million worth of items lost in Britain's biggest burglary.

Art gallery owner Jay Rutland, Tamara Ecclestone, their daughter and their dog were on holiday in Lapland when their Kensington mansion in Palace Green was burgled.

The thieves carried out a £25 million raid on television personality, and daughter of former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, Tamara Eccleston's 2000 square-foot property in December 2019.

However, Mr Rutland, 44, revealed that their insurance policy had an exemption clause for watches and gems - previously unnoticed by the pair.

“Our total insurance claim was for, I think, 40 grand or 45 grand, something like that, which was for the doors in the house - because [the burglars] smashed down 25 or 30 doors," Mr Rutland told the Daily Mail.

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"Every door to every room was locked. So that meant they had to crowbar each door open."

"So, I remember we claimed on the insurance for those doors to be replaced, but that was it. Nothing else was insured."

He accepted responsibility for the insurance blunder, resulting in the family unable to claim for the valuables looted.

The majority of the stolen items have still not been recovered.

Three Italian men - Jugoslav Jovanovic, Alessandro Maltese and Alessandro Donati - were previously arrested and convicted for a combined 28 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to burgle.

Two other burglaries on London homes were carried out in December 2019, belonging to former Chelsea and England footballer Frank Lampard, and the deceased owner of Leicester City, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha - who died in a helicopter crash outside the club's stadium in 2018.

Another arrest was made in Serbia in December 2023.

Serbian police previously refused requests by the Met Police to extradite the man.

But the Met said the recent arrests were made as part of an international money laundering investigation.

'One of the men, aged in his 50s, was wanted by detectives investigating a series of high value burglaries committed in Kensington and Chelsea in December 2019,' the Met said.

Meanwhile, the Lampards had around £60,000 in watches and jewellery stolen while they were out of their Chelsea property on December 1, 2019.

On December 10, the gang targeted Mr Srivaddhanaprabha's Knightsbridge home, which had been turned into a shrine by his family following his death, aged 60, in a helicopter crash shortly after take-off from the King Power Stadium on October 27, 2018.

Among more than £1 million in property stolen was a TAG Heuer watch he was wearing before he left for Leicester that day.

During the previous trial of the four convicted men, the court heard how burglars even popped a £500 bottle of Cristal champagne to drink as they carried out the raid and later celebrated with a £760 sushi meal in Knightsbridge restaurant Zuma.

On the way to the final £25 million burglary, Maltese stole a packet of chewing gum from a kiosk at Victoria station as the gang stopped to buy coffee and pastries.

Jovanovic and his uncle Vukovic were later seen on CCTV in Harrods department store spending thousands of pounds on luxury goods and signing up for loyalty cards using fake names.