Jenson Button and wife have 'no interest in UK return' after £250k luggage stolen in London

The wife of former champion has opened up on the "traumatising" moment a thief swiped her designer suitcase with £250,000 worth of luxury possessions inside. It happened a St Pancras station in London as Brittny and her husband returned from a romantic getaway.

They had travelled to Paris for a short holiday shortly before this year. But when they got back to London on February 13, a man snatched her Goyard suitcase while Button helped their driver to load up the car.

"He had his back to my [suitcase] and a guy just came and swooped it - we didn't even see him do it,' she told the . "So they were probably watching us. We had no idea until Jenson went, 'Wait where is your bag?' He raced off trying to find it, but [the thief] was already gone.

"I just started crying, I was a little upset with Jenson because I felt like he kind of dropped the ball a little but its not his fault someone was watching us. He also did get his bag stolen a few months ago in a car park in London.

"It definitely was shocking that I just didn't think. I'm normally pretty cautious when I'm out in public and travelling, but I just didn't think that there were gangs literally just waiting for people and watching."

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Plain-clothed officers from the were able to apprehend the thief after CCTV footage of the incident was circulated. Mourad Aid, 41, later pleaded guilty to theft at Westminster Magistrates' Court and the BTP confirmed he now awaits sentencing.

But Brittny accepts that she is never likely to get her stolen possessions, which included two Kelly bags worth around £70,000 and other antique jewellery which took the value to around £250k, back. That's despite spotting her designer bags listed online a few days after the theft.

She said: "Unfortunately, I saw the shady looking photos of these guys holding my bags on their lap. I knew I was probably never getting them back, and who knows how many hands it had touched - at that point I was not really interested. I wasn't going to send anyone to meet with these people.

"I knew they were mine, because one of the Kelly bags was missing a strap, which I had left it in LA. A lot of people assume, 'Your husband bought you those', but actually I bought about half of them and I worked really hard and to have someone come up to me and take them from me - it's just frustrating.

"People are going to say, 'first problems', but whether you're getting robbed of something that's not worth a lot of value - if it's sentimental, its sentimental. I was planning to pass down to my daughter. It's just crazy. I don't really have many things from my parents, I don't really have many family heirlooms and I wish I did. So it's really heartbreaking."

Brittny and her 2009 champion husband Jenson, 45, who races in the World Endurance Championship on top of his F1 punditry duties with , live in California. And the incident in London has reaffirmed her desire to continue to live outside the UK.

She said: "I've heard countless stories. When we first started dating we would go to London, and it was such like a nice place to be, and now it just feels very kind of dark and scary. My husband and I, we really have no interest going back to the UK.

"And it's a shame, because, you know, we will have to go back for family and work. It just feels so unsafe and doesn't feel how it once was, and its just unfortunate because that's where my children's grandmother and aunts live."