After losing an eye in a brutal jail attack, a career criminal who tried to rob Sead Kolasinac and Mesut Ozil, two former Arsenal stars, is now partially blind. Ashley Smith, 34, and his accomplice attempted to steal around £200,000 worth of luxury watches from the Premier League stars in July 2019.
CCTV showed Bosnia and Herzegovina hardman Kolasinac, 31, fighting them off as German Ozil, 36, protected his wife in his Mercedes G-Waggon.
In Hampstead, north-west London, Smith, who was armed with a knitting needle, was sentenced to ten years in prison in November 2019 before his sentence was reduced to six years after an appeal. Footage filmed the night before his sentencing showed the thug being attacked in his HMP Pentonville cell as he pleaded, “It wasn't me, though. I oath to God. I can't see.”
The Sun can now reveal he lost the use of his left eye following the revenge attack for a robbery near where he lived in Islington, north London.
Smith claimed he had no involvement in the crime and was targeted for warning his co-defendant he was a marked man before coming to the prison.
He told The Blue Tick Show: “He was beating me up, basically saying I robbed someone’s mum. I was like, Bruv, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
“The youth got me good, still. I was brutalised and recorded. I didn't even know it got recorded. I’ve gone to hospital, come out of the cells, collapsed, and told the screws I’ve fallen out of the bed.”
He continued, "My eye. The youth took my eye, but it’s life, man. I just think, you know, all the skullduggery that I’ve done and got away with has caught up to me now.
“In the video you can’t see his face. He’s back on the road. I wish him the best of luck. It is what it is. It’s life, man. I thank God I’ve still got my other eye.
“I cried. I cried out. I lost both eyes. My eye was taken by a youth for something I did not do. “ Like my nan would have said, what goes around comes around, and you can’t cry when you’re out robbing. When you’re out robbing and s*** goes wrong, there are consequences.”
The dad-of-one was on licence for a 42-month sentence for a burglary in 2017 when he tried to rob the Arsenal players outside Kolasinac’s house.
The soccer stars were pursued by the thugs on a stolen moped during a high-speed chase before they called the police from a Turkish restaurant in Golders Green.
Smith and his accomplice Jordan Northover, 31, who was sentenced to 18 years, both admitted attempted robbery at Harrow Crown Court.
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The dad-of-one was on licence for a 42-month sentence for a burglary in 2017 when he tried to rob the Arsenal players outside Kolasinac’s house.
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