Moped gang raids top London fashion stores

A gang on mopeds raided the store of leading British designer Luella Bartley early yesterday morning, smashing their way in with a sledgehammer before speeding off with more than £10,000 worth of luxury handbags.

Minutes earlier, the gang had targeted Brora, a luxury cashmere store, escaping with thousands of pounds worth of rugs and sweaters.

Scotland Yard believe the raids are linked and are keeping an open mind as to whether they are connected to other similar robberies on upmarket boutiques.

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Around 20 handbags were stolen from the Luella Bartley store in Mayfair, London, which only opened last week.

About 10 minutes earlier the thieves had seized cashmere rugs and sweaters from Brora on Marylebone High Street, stuffing them into a white holdall.

The raiders are described as being in their late teens or early 20s, wearing dark clothing, and used one grey and one black coloured bike, with two people on board each one.

The locations of the stores are well covered by CCTV cameras, but the smash and grab raiders wore crash helmets with their visors down to try to avoid detection and had blacked out their bikes' licence plates.