Billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe says London is 'not safe' anymore (2024)

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has said London is 'not safe' anymore and refuses to wear a watch in the capital because he is scared he will be mugged.

The 71-year-old billionaire, who grew up in a council house in Greater Manchester, owns chemical company Ineos and has part ownership of Manchester United, and has an estimated net worth of £29.6 billion - making him the UK's third richest man.

Last year, Sir Jim witnessed someone being stabbed to death on CCTV outside his Knightsbridge office on Brompton Road over a Rolex watch.

He said: 'He died in a pool of blood because somebody tried to take his Rolex and he resisted.

'About a year ago we had three guys in hoodies, with machetes, right outside the office, opposite Harrods.'

'I can't wear a watch in London, and I just need to be a bit wary, a bit careful,' he told The Sunday Times.

Last year, boxer Amir Khan was robbed at gunpoint by two men in their 20s for his £72,000 diamond-encrusted watch as he left a restaurant in Leyton, east London. He has since moved to Dubai with his wife, feeling unsafe in London.

Singer and presenter Aled Jones was robbed for his £17,000 Rolex in broad daylight last July when walking with his son in Chiswick, west London. The 16-year-old boy who snatched the timepiece was armed with a machete and told Mr Jones: 'Walk the other way or I will cut your head off', when he tried to pursue him.

Four out of 10 of all watch thefts are in London where they have risen from 57,468 in 2022 to 72,756 by the spring of last year, with moped and e-bike gangs largely responsible.

The London-based charitythe Ben Kinsella Trust - set up in memory of 17-year-old Ben Kinsella who was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack in Islington in 2008 -surveyed almost 10,000 young people who attended its London workshops and discovered the morbid truth that a quarter thought arming themselves with a blade would protect them.

There was a surge in recorded knife crime offences in London between 2022 and 2023. The 15,016 recorded last year is the second highest figure on record and up by about a fifth on the 12,786 recorded in 2022.

Sadiq Khan has been accused of losing control of crime in London after data revealed in April that thefts and robberies involving knives have nearly doubled since he became the Mayor of London in 2016.

In the year ending March 2016, the Met Police recorded 33,983 incidents of theft from person. In the year ending September 2023, it had risen by 96 per cent to 66,649 incidents.

Sir Jim blamed the increase in robberies and shoplifting on the authorities failure to provide basic public services, such as providing enough prison spaces to house criminals.

He said: 'We don’t have enough prison space. I mean, this didn’t just happen. We’ve been talking about the prisons being overcrowded for 10 years.'

In July, MailOnline analysis showed that more than three in five prisons are overcrowded.

As of March 2024, the total prison population in England and Wales totals 87,900.

To free up space, thousands of prisoners will be freed early under a controversial plan orchestrated by the new Labour government, who have vowed to tackle the crisis.

Prisoners, including some criminals convicted of violent offences, will be released after serving just 40 per cent of their sentence, rather than the current 50 per cent.

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood warned we face 'a total breakdown of law and order' with 'van-loads of dangerous people circling the country with nowhere to go' without the emergency measure.