Anya Taylor-Joy barricaded herself in a bedroom as masked robbers broke into a London home, a court has heard. Photo / Getty Images
Anya Taylor-Joy and her husband barricaded themselves in a bedroom during an armed robbery in London, a court has heard.
Two masked men smashed their way into the property in February 2023 while The Queen’s Gambit actor and Malcolm McRae, her husband, were inside.
McRae, a musician, confronted the intruders, and then barricaded himself and his wife in one of the bedrooms as the robbers attempted to prise open the door with a crowbar.
McRae was armed only with a lamp but managed to scare off the robbers by shouting: “I have a gun, I have a gun”, Wood Green Crown Court was told.
On Monday, 43-year-old Kirk Holdrick, one of the robbers, was given a three-year prison sentence for the raid.
Prosecutors submitted in writing to the judge that the way the two robbers had tried to get into the bedroom, rather than only stealing expensive items, suggested that they had been intending to target its celebrity occupants.
Taylor-Joy, 29, best known for her roles in Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, appeared on the Baftas red carpet a week after the robbery.
McRae, 31, is a member of the two-person rock band more*, alongside Kane Ritchotte.
The court heard that Taylor-Joy and McRae were staying at the property with Ritchotte when the break-in happened at around 1am on February 12, 2023.
They heard glass in a side door being smashed, and McRae went to investigate. When the musician saw Holdrick and another man – wearing balaclavas and gloves – forcing their way into the property, he shouted: “Hey, stop” before retreating.
He ran to the bedroom where he and his wife were staying, locked the door and told Taylor-Joy to hide behind the bed.
McRae then grabbed a lamp as the intruders started to force the door open. When he shouted out that he had a gun, the thieves appeared to stop and then fled empty-handed.
When Metropolitan Police officers arrived, the couple were still barricaded inside the bedroom. They told police they had been traumatised by their ordeal, and feared being targeted again in the future.
CCTV footage captured the moment Holdrick and his accomplice scaled a wall to the home, triggering an external security light and becoming “startled” as they attempted to break into the property.
Holdrick’s DNA was found on the back door, while prints from his trainers were found outside the bedroom door.
He was arrested on April 18, 2023 after getting off a ferry from Belfast to Liverpool, and denied being responsible for the crime.
Holdrick – who previously briefly dated one of the cast members from The Only Way Is Essex – claimed his DNA had been found at the property because he had once been to a party there. He later abandoned his defence and pleaded guilty to burglary in December.
When he was sentenced by Judge Barbara Mensah, prosecutors highlighted Taylor-Joy and McRae’s fame and argued that the raid may have been “targeted”.
Holdrick, a career criminal, was previously jailed for 12 years in November over a robbery in which a woman and her daughter were held at gunpoint, tied up and threatened with violence at their home.
He and accomplice Ashley Fulton carried out the raid in Sandbanks, Dorset, nine days after the robbery involving Taylor-Joy and McRae.
Dressed as police officers with an imitation firearm, they targeted the home of Mark Aitchison, a businessman. They barged in on his wife Kerry, used cable ties to restrain her and told her that she would be killed if she did not open the safe.
When the couple’s daughter Emily arrived home unexpectedly, she was dragged by her hair and the intruders threatened to shoot her in front of her mother, Bournemouth Crown Court heard.
The robbers fled with about £200,000 ($450,000) of luxury watches, designer handbags, jewellery and cash.
Holdrick, originally from Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, has convictions dating to when he was a teenager, including for burglaries. He was jailed for life in 2005 for armed robberies on a security van transporting cash, and on a jewellers.
Holdrick – who also went by an alias, Aaron Evans – was out on licence after serving the minimum term of his life sentence when he carried out the London and Sandbanks robberies.
He was recalled to prison to continue serving his life sentence after his latest offences. He will serve his jail terms for the two robberies alongside his life sentence.
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