WARREN: BLACK MAN CLEARED OF ROBBING £50,000 RING AFTER VICTIM SAID ATTACKER WAS WHITE

A man was cleared of robbing a City executive of her £50,000 diamond engagement ring today (THURS) after the victim said her attacker was white.

Alexander Warren, 23, was charged after his DNA was found on a mobile phone earpiece left at the scene of the mugging in London’s Mayfair.

But during the trial at the Old Bailey, victim Kris Reagan admitted that she had told police the robber was ‘not black, definitely white.’

She told the court she was talking her dog for a walk after returning home from work on September 22, 2009.

As they made their way down Charles Street at around 7.15pm she heard a motorbike coming up behind her.

Mrs Reagan told the court: ‘I felt a large hit from behind and a hand came round my neck and my mouth because I was trying to scream.

‘He said ”Give me the ring, I want the ring.” I was screaming. I did not want to give my wedding ring.

‘He took his other hand and grabbed me by the throat, and he threw me to the ground backwards. My head hit the pavement.

‘I remember him demanding the ring. He wasn’t going to give up. I looked to my side and saw a motorbike with a person on it.

‘I had a stack of rings, a band, a diamond ring, and another band. I took off the first band and threw it in the hope he would go after that.’

She added: ‘I didn’t know how serious it was until he said he was going to kill me.

‘He put so much pressure on my neck and windpipe that I was losing consciousness.

‘I took off my ring and he grabbed it.’

Mrs Reagan said she then tried to grab the robber to stop him get away.

‘I got contact with something, I thought it was a hoodie cord. I pulled it off. I could see his eyes. he looked very angry.’

The robber then escaped on the back on the motorbike.

Mrs Reagan said she chased the bike down the road, desperately trying to remember the registration number.

Her husband then emerged from their home after hearing her screams.

Mrs Reagan said: ‘He thought something had happened to the dog because I was so hysterical. I told him I had been attacked and call the police.’

She said the stolen ring was a six carat diamond ring worth £50,000.

When the police arrived she took them to the scene, and the earpiece was recovered.

Mrs Reagan gave a witness statement to police describing the robber as ‘thin’, quick-moving and wearing a motorcycle helmet.

She added that the hand he grabbed her with was white and said: ‘He was not black, definitely white.’

Questioned in court, she admitted she had said that to police, but added: ‘I only saw a small section of his face.’

She also admitted that she believed the robber had a Midlands accent.

Prosecutor Maria Karaiskos told jurors: ‘She said the man’s hands were white. Clearly you are going to have to take into consideration what was happening at the time of this incident.’

Warren did not give evidence at the trial.

Mrs Reagan, who worked as a executive manager in Canary Wharf, has since returned to America. She flew to the UK to give evidence.

Warren, of [7] Daryngton House, Hartington Road, Vauxhall, southwest London, denied robbery.

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