A celebrity jewellery and antiques dealer has branded two men who raided his store and violently attacked him with a hammer as ‘vicious and evil’.
Ian Towning, a regular face on Dickinson’s Real Deal and Posh Porn, was brutally attacked – along with his security guard Mark Simmons, 60 – as the masked robbers cleared his shop of £120,000 worth of jewellery.
Robbers James Dixon, 42, of Pimlico, central London, and Thomas Loring, 41, of Mottingham, south-east London, have been convicted of a string of violent robberies and burglaries – along with the one on Mr Towning’s store – that they committed in and around London earlier this year.
Today, after the case against the pair concluded with Loring being found guilty of conspiracy to rob, the Flying Squad officers who snared the offenders, after putting them under surveillance, described Dixon as being like ‘a loaded gun walking around ready to go off at any time’.
Detective Constable Tom Lockwood added: ‘Dixon is just ready to go…
