Restaurant bandit banned from Mayfair

Janis Nords left over £5000 in unpaid bills. Photo: http://www.amatieris.lv

A Stoke Newington man has been banned from Mayfair and five other exclusive London postcodes after leaving unpaid bills at a series of high-class restaurants.

Janis Nords, a 27-year-old Latvian national, admitted to owing a total of £5,800 at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court, after scamming restaurants in a number of prestigious central London locations.

He said that his two-week “eat-and-run” spree had been for the sake of a “high maintenance” girlfriend.

Nords, an amateur film-maker who is £15,000 in debt, was arrested last week after being chased by waiters from L’Oranger in St. James’s Street. He had left a bill of £1,022 for, among other things, multiple orders of foie gras and a bottle of vintage champagne.

Other restaurants targeted by Nords included the Helene Darroze at Mayfair’s Connaught Hotel and L’Autre Pied in Marylebone.

District Judge Daphne Wickham said in sentencing that she was barring Nords from the six postcodes “that have all the expensive restaurants. You are not to go into any part of that area at all.”

She also ordered Nords to return to court on 14 December with a viable plan to reimburse the exclusive restaurants for their losses.

Nords was accompanied in each case by an unnamed woman, who was also arrested but later released by police. It is reported that she claimed to know nothing of the scams.

The court heard that at each restaurant the pair would say they were going outside for cigarettes after ordering dessert, but then not return.

Guillame Bailly, manager of L’Oranger, said he was pleased with the sentence. “We’re glad we won’t be seeing him around here again. He certainly would not be welcome back.”

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