Man accused of robbing Lando Norris’ £144,000 Richard Mille watch after Euro 2020 final found ‘not guilty’

Liam Williams, who was accused of robbing McLaren's Lando Norris' £144,000 Richard Mille watch following the Euro 2020 final, has been found 'not guilty'.


Man accused of robbing Lando Norris’ £144,000 Richard Mille watch after Euro 2020 final found ‘not guilty’

The accused (now cleared), Liam Willaism (L) | Lando Norris (R)

Lando Norris was robbed of his £144,000 Richard Mille RM67-02 watch back in July 2021, after the ‘Euro 2020’ final between England and Italy. There were apparently only 5 of the same watch in the whole world. When returning to his McLaren GT, in the yellow VIP car park around midnight, he was approached by two men, one of whom asked Norris: ‘Is this your car?’. Soon, the McLaren superstar was put in a headlock. One of the suspects held him back while the other removed his watch.

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When two swabs were taken from Norris’ wrist, to pick up DNA traces, it was found that they were ’37 million times’ likely that it was the DNA of one Liam Williams, 25, from Bootle, Merseyside. A week after the robbery, Williams was arrested in Liverpool and attended a voluntary interview, replying “No comment,” to all the questions. He gave similar responses in two later interviews. Norris could not pick him out (as one of the robbers) from an identity line-up either.

There was another point: The McLaren driver thought that one of his robbers, the only one he could (somewhat) identify, had a London accent. Williams does not have such an accent. As for Williams’ side of the argument, the accused claimed that he traveled to Wembley that day with three friends, hoping to get into to the stadium, despite the fact they did not have tickets. Just as it happens, many people had got into Wembley that day following some crowd disorder.

Williams denied committing the robbery and was cleared in a week-long trial. He was found ‘not guilty’ by the jury after less than two hours of deliberation. This was despite the fact that he could not provide the police with details of his three ‘friends’, claiming that he no longer spoke to them. In addition, he could not explain why his (alleged) DNA was found on Norris’ left wrist. He further described being threatened by someone over the watch.

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Read More: “It doesn’t affect me in any way,” Lando Norris not bothered by the harsh criticism of McLaren

Someone allegedly threatened the accused regarding Lando Norris’ watch

Lando Norris
Lando Norris

Liam Williams, the accused, said he attended the party after the Euro 2020 final. There, one man warned him not to talk about a particular watch. Williams had been on a video call with his friend (from back home), discussing the match. The topic arrived at some of the people there possessing a ‘watch’, which seemingly, was the same watch stolen from Lando Norris. One “of the lads” heard him, and so, the matter got a bit “heated”.

Williams said, as per The Daily Mail: “They were saying ‘why were you discussing the watch’… I don’t know if they thought I was setting them up.” and when asked by the prosecutor to clarify exactly what he was doing, he said: “Yeah, I was just video calling a friend talking about the footy and we got onto the watch and someone overheard me speaking about it and an argument occurred.

He added: “Then on the Tuesday [after the match] I could see all these telephone calls. I had a number ringing me in the night and at this point I didn’t know who it was but as they were talking to me. It was the same lad I had the argument with he was just saying ‘don’t mention anything about the watch’ [and] to ‘keep my mouth shut and say no more’.”

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The next day was the same, and at this point, Williams felt he was being ‘threatened’, and considered changing his phone number. When he got arrested (over suspicion of robbing the watch), he changed his phone number as he was scared about the threats, with the callers apparently saying they knew his name, etc. In any case, he has now been cleared. The search for Norris’ robbers goes on.

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