An armed career criminal has been sentenced to an additional three years in prison for attempting to break into the London bedroom of Hollywood star Anya Taylor-Joy, where her husband, musician Malcolm McRae, barricaded them inside and scared off the intruders by pretending to have a gun.
Kirk Holdrick, 43, and an accomplice, both masked, smashed their way into the luxury property in February 2023. McRae, armed only with a lamp, shouted 'I have a gun, I have a gun' as the men tried to prise open the bedroom door with a crowbar. The bluff worked, and the burglars fled empty-handed, Wood Green Crown Court heard.
Holdrick was already serving a life sentence for previous armed robberies. The new sentence, handed down on 28 February 2025, follows a 12-year term he received last November for a separate, more violent home invasion. Prosecutors suggested the raid on Taylor-Joy's home may have been specifically targeted at the celebrity occupants, as Holdrick made directly for the bedroom rather than stealing valuables from elsewhere.
Just nine days after the thwarted raid, Holdrick and another accomplice, Ashley Fulton, disguised as police officers and armed with an imitation firearm, targeted the home of a wealthy businessman in Sandbanks. During that incident, a woman and her daughter were held at gunpoint, tied up, and threatened with being burned with an iron and shot dead if they did not open the family safe. The robbers fled with approximately £200,000 worth of luxury watches, handbags, jewellery, and cash.
Taylor-Joy and McRae, who were staying at the property with McRae's musical partner Kane Ritchotte, later told police they had been traumatised by the ordeal and feared being targeted again. Holdrick was arrested in April 2023 after disembarking a ferry from Belfast to Liverpool, and his DNA was found at the scene. He initially denied responsibility but later pleaded guilty to burglary.
