Oh no! Where's my Lamborghini? Businessman lost £130,000 car on drunken night out

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated:


A property investor lost his £130,000 Lamborghini sports car because he was too drunk to remember where he parked it.

To cover his embarrassment Glenn Knowles, 35, who co-owned the car with Robert Mant, 29, then lied to his friend and the police, claiming he had no idea what had happened to it.

He only admitted he'd taken the car from his friend's house when police showed him images of the car being driven and said he had been 'too embarrassed' earlier to admit his stupidity.

Richard Mant
Glenn Knowles

Cleared: Glenn Knowles (right) lost a Lamborghini he co-owned with Richard Mant (left) after a night out drinking. They were acquitted of fraud after a jury heard Mr Knowles had previously misplaced a Mercedes after a night out

Mr Knowles and Mr Mant were accused in Guildford Crown Court during a six-day trial of trying to swindle their insurance company over the disappearance of the car.

The Lamborghini has never been traced, despite being fitted with a tracking device.

The jury accepted Mr Knowles's claim that he had no idea what had happened to the car after his drunken night out and the pair were unanimously acquitted.

They heard it was not the first expensive car he had misplaced as on a previous occasion he couldn't find a Mercedes car after a night out in Kingston, Surrey.

The car was eventually found parked behind a nightclub.

The court heard that on December 17, 2008, Mr Mant parked the Lamborghini Gallardo outside his home in Epsom, Surrey.

The Italian Lamborghini Gallardo Motorcar

A Lamborghini Gallardo similar to the one that went missing. It has never been traced, despite being fitted with a tracking device

In the morning he realised it was missing and his neighbour told him he had seen the car being driven away.

Father-of-three Mr Mant, who owns MSJ Joinery and The London Staircase Company, called Mr Knowles, who at the point claimed he did not know where it was.

But when the £130,000 car was tracked via number plate recognition systems, it showed it being driven towards Gillingham, Kent.

Mr Knowles, who earns £160,000 a year from a property portfolio, admitted in court that he had gone into Mr Mant's home and taken the keys to the Lamborghini before driving to Gillingham where he had met his parents in a pub.

He said he might have driven the car while drunk to Rochester, where he continued drinking but he did not think he would have taken it on to Maidstone, where he ended his evening.

He told the court that before taking a taxi home at 4am, he had been unable to find the car.

So, the jury was told, he dropped the keys at Mr Mant's house and didn't tell anyone what he had done.

The two men then reported the car as stolen and put in an insurance claim.

They were subsequently charged with conspiring to commit fraud between December 2008 and March 5 last year.

Throughout the trial Mr Mant maintained that he knew nothing of the deception until after the pair were interviewed by police and Mr Knowles admitted taking the car.

Mr Knowles admitted in court that he was 'drinking heavily and going through a bad time' when the incident occurred.

Both men, who said they had 'no motive to commit the fraud', told police they had no intention to get rid of the vehicle and had owned a string of high-powered expensive cars since they were in their early 20s.

Judge Neil Stewart, summing up, said: 'He said he wrongly chose to return the keys without taking responsibility.

'As time went on he found it harder and harder to confess and took the view that either way it was stolen, but he said he realises it was the wrong thing to do.'

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