Thatcher's Close Friend , 71, Kidnapped, Pistol-Whipped and Robbed of £1M Jewellery by Hooded Gang

Margaret Thatcher's close friend Lady Powell, 71, kidnapped, pistol-whipped and robbed of £1m in jewellery and watches by hooded gang outside her Rome villa as she searched for missing dachshund

Socialite Carla Powell – confidante to a Who’s Who of celebrities and world politicians – told last night how she was robbed at gunpoint in a terrifying raid at her secluded farmhouse.

The 71-year-old, who counts Tony Blair and David Cameron as friends, was thrown to the floor, pistol-whipped and kicked by a masked gang who ransacked her home in hills outside Rome.

They escaped with thousands of pounds of jewellery, watches and cash after forcing her to open a safe by beating a member of her staff and threatening to kill him. The gang also fired several shots to terrify their victims.

The brutality of the raid has stunned friends of Lady Powell, who for years has presided over the most influential political salons in London and Italy with a stylish and frenetic charm.

Something very similar happened to a lady I know who lived in a magnificent house in one of the finest areas of London. Despite all allowed security measures, thieves broke in, raped her maid, beat her houseman half to death, and beat her. The cops finally showed up when they had some spare time in their schedule. No effort was made to apprehend the thieves. The cops told her to sell her house and move away because the thieves, knowing they were immune, would be back. She returned to the United States after half a century in the UK. Such is life in England now.

Frankly, yes.

The idea that UK police would not only fail to investigate a crime, but actually tell a homeowner to move, is utter crap. Especially the latter.

The British police may fail to catch criminals through incompetence, but the idea they would deliberately fail to investigate is nonsense. And that’s believable compared to the utterly ludicrous notion that the British police would actually tell someone to sell up and move house. Utter, utter nonsense.

As I genuinely do not want to call anyone o here an outright liar, I will politely suggest that either you misheard the story or didn’t pick up all the facts, or, as happens here, you have heard a second hand story about the UK and have reprinted it in this thread as a personal story.

As a Brit, who btw does not have any problem with any legitimate criticism of the UK at all, your friends story simply does not sound credible on either point, esp the latter ‘sell your house’ ‘fact’.

The British police, any western police for that matter, would never say that to a UK homeowner. And if they had, believe me, it would have been frontpage news.

IF you can prove the story, I will hapiily retract and apologise for my recent comments immediately.

I am sorry if you are angry at me for challenging you, but as a an actual Brit, if I think someone is telling lies or passing off myths about what is after all MY country, I will challenge them, and if that means upsetting the other poster, so be it. And I would expect you to do thw same if I told questionable facts or stories about the US.

Feel free to ignore me, or put me on ignore, if you wish.

I am not upset that you dispute this story, only that you have chosen to dispute it in a manner we do not generally employ on FR. Personal attacks are specifically forbidden, and telling a lady that “Frankly, yes,” you consider her a liar may certainly be said to constitute such a personal attack. Your defense of your country does you credit but your immediate hostility and accusation does not.

I have related the events as they were told to me by my friend, a person of integrity. This is not some tale I had read or had gotten third-hand. It took place about ten years ago.

Note that nowhere in my account did I claim that the British police refused to investigate. There are times police simply can’t catch bad guys, as when there is no description or evidence.

And if you think that no Western police force would advise a homeowner to sell up and move away: believe me, it happens here all the time. When people are plagued by stalkers or other repeat criminals the police often advise them to move away. Someone in my immediate family who was the victim of a crime had this advice from the state’s attorney and the assistant state’s attorney (a prosecutor) when a criminal was about to be released from prison; he explained that the police could not mount a perpetual guard over her. So it seems not an unlikely or unjust recommendation to give to a frightened old woman who cannot protect herself.

I trust you won’t dispute that crime has been growing in the UK and that the police are a bit overwhelmed? It is certainly a complaint my English friends have, and it is not an attack on your country, which I love well, to note this. It’s certainly something worth discussing as I consider spending several months there later this year.

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