(posted 7798 days ago)Actor foils high street cash raid
By Edmund Conway
(Filed: 12/12/2002)The Telegraph
Christopher Cazenove, the actor best known for his role as the louche rogue Ben Carrington in the American soap opera Dynasty, was praised by police yesterday after he foiled a bank raid by hitting a robber with a wooden chopping board.Cazenove, 56, was shopping in London on Tuesday when he saw a pair of men attack a Securicor guard delivering a cash box to the Clapham High Street branch of Natwest Bank.
The men had taken the box from the guard and hit him over the head with it before fleeing down the street towards Cazenove.
The actor knocked the thief to the ground with a chopping board he had just bought. He then retrieved the box and took it back to the van while the robbers fled empty-handed.
Speaking to The Telegraph from his home in Kennington, London, yesterday, Cazenove described the incident as "terrifying" but said it was instinct more than anything else that prompted him to action.
"When I saw this man running down the street towards me, my first thought was 'this is the last place I want to be'," he said. "I dropped my bags, and everything but the chopping board I had just bought.
"Of course the best plan of action would have been to fell him with a rugby tackle; but without much time to think, I launched the board straight at his face. He went straight to the ground.
"I wasn't feeling massively heroic, and at that point I thought: 'well this is it - I'm going to die'. But I don't think either of them was armed, and he didn't come after me when I grabbed the box and took it back towards the van. The last thing I saw of the two men was them running away.
"The police phoned me this morning to thank me, although I haven't heard anything from the bank yet."
Scotland Yard yesterday said that the two men had not been caught. An inquiry was launched into the incident, and they were appealing to the public for any information.
Det Con Keith Gerham praised Mr Cazenove for what he did. "We are extremely grateful to the member of the public who offered his assistance at the scene of the crime," he said.
Cazenove originally found fame in the Seventies when he appeared in a number of costume dramas.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2002.