Brazen

Thief spent 19mins in home during heist | Maid just missed £10m jewels raider

- TOM PETTIFOR

A DARING thief who escaped with gems worth £10.4million from a billionaires' row mansion was almost caught in the act by a maid.

CCTV from inside the home shows the masked raider crossing a landing 63 seconds before the woman walks across the same spot.

The thief is said to have spent 19 minutes cracking a safe and searching through two floors of the 13-bedroom house in Primrose Hill, North London.

He pulled off one of the country's biggest heists, despite there reportedly being eight residents and staff in the property at the time.

Rewards of £1.5m have been offered by the homeowners to help catch the thief and recover the stolen items, which include a Graff 10.73-carat diamond ring, two De Beers butterfly diamond rings, and a Hermes Niloticus Lumiere necklace.