Harvey Nichols reopens after raid

Harvey Nichols' opened on Thursday for its winter sale

One of London's most famous stores said armed jewel thieves escaped with gems valued at less than £160,000 after a Christmas Day raid.

Managing director of Harvey Nichols Joseph Wan said original reports of £5m worth of goods being taken were inflated.

In fact, the gang had not gained access to the millions of pounds worth of gems stored inside but had made off with mostly costume jewellery.

Mr Wan spoke as the store in Knightsbridge, west London, reopened its doors on Thursday to launch its winter sale.

No injuries

Masked gunmen tied up and blindfolded two security guards after entering the store through a staff entrance at 0240 GMT on Tuesday.

No-one was injured as a result of the raid.

Mr Wan said: "The £5 million figure arose because there was some speculation that if the robbers had broken the safe, they could have got away with some very expensive pieces.

Harvey Nichols

1813: Established as a linen shop

1880s: Moved to present premises

April 1996: Listed on London Stock Exchange

1996: Second store opened in Leeds

2000: First foreign store opened in Saudi Arabia

2001: Store opened in Birmingham

2002: Manchester and Edinburgh stores planned

"Luckily, when I came back to the store this morning and inspected the premises, I saw that they didn't even attempt to break the safe.

"The only damage to property was that some of the locks on the wooden display cabinets had been broken.

"They just forced open the cabinets and cleared out a lot of the costume jewellery."

Among the items which were taken were pieces from designer brand Pascal which accounted for between £100,000 and £150,000 worth of stock.

Meanwhile while ST Dupont has reported £5,000 to £6,000 worth of stolen merchandise stolen.

Mr Wan said the store's staff entrance is always guarded by at least two security personnel and is open 24 hours to allow staff such as cleaners or repairmen to get in the building.

He added: "The robbers spent half an hour to 45 minutes in the store, only in the jewellery department.

Flagship store

"I can't speculate on how planned the robbery was but it could be that they had visited the store before the robbery to find out where everything was."

In addition to its flagship store in Knightsbridge and restaurants in the capital, Harvey Nichols has stores in Leeds and Birmingham and a licensed store in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

A new store is also being built in Manchester as part of the ongoing redevelopment of the city centre.

The London store is known to television viewers as "Harvey Nicks" - a favourite haunt of the characters Patsy and Edina in the BBC show Absolutely Fabulous.