Trial begins of 'grandpa' gang accused of tying up and robbing Kardashian

A group of pensioners nicknamed the "grandpa robbers" by French media have gone on trial charged with stealing jewellery worth millions of euros from the American reality TV star Kim Kardashian when she attended Paris fashion week in 2016.

- Angelique Chrisafis

Nine men and one woman, whose ages range from 35 to 78, appeared in a court in the French capital yesterday at the start of a month-long trial in which Kardashian, 44, is set to testify.

In perhaps the biggest robbery of an individual in France in 20 years, Kardashian was tied up and held hostage at gunpoint, in a flat in central Paris, by armed men dressed as police officers in the early hours of 3 October 2016. They escaped with jewellery worth an estimated €10m (£8.5m).

Kardashian, a billionaire celebrity influencer and business owner, later said on her reality TV show that she had feared she would be raped and murdered by the masked gunmen who entered her rented suite.

Those on trial are mainly men in their 60s and 70s with previous criminal records and underworld nicknames - including Old Omar and Blue Eyes - that recall the old-school French bandits of 1960s and 70s film noirs. Prosecutors argue they were armed and dangerous and had carefully planned the crime after meetings in a Paris bar.

At the time of the robbery, Kardashian was without security protection and sitting alone in her bedroom at an exclusive building, known as a "no address" site, where celebrities often rent sumptuous suites.

Her bodyguard had instead accompanied her older sister, the fellow reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian, to a Paris nightclub after the sisters had spent the day at fashion shows being photographed.