An Algerian teenager who robbed Bridgerton actress Genevieve Chenneour and threatened to decapitate singer Aled Jones has been sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison after admitting he armed himself with a machete to target luxury-watch owners.
Zacariah Boulares was 16 when he confronted Songs Of Praise presenter Jones on Chiswick High Road in July 2023. After taking the star’s £17,000 Daytona Rolex, he warned that he would cut off Jones’s head if he pursued him.
Following his release from youth detention, Boulares was jailed last year for a series of thefts, including an attempt to snatch a mobile phone from Bridgerton actress Chenneour at Joe & The Juice on Kensington High Street.
The 19-year-old appeared in court again on Thursday and received a further two-year-and-10-month sentence after admitting that he had armed himself for two robberies in August 2023.
Sentencing him, Judge Jas Jandu said Boulares had behaved in a “totally unacceptable” manner by “rampaging around the streets with a deadly weapon”.
“Robbing people in broad daylight or attempting to do so” was wholly unacceptable, the judge added, telling Boulares that he should be ashamed of his actions.
On August 9, 2023, Boulares used a large bladed weapon to take Mark Turner’s watch in Kensington Square Gardens, west London.
Ten days later, he attempted to steal a Rolex from Dutch executive Neil Tallantire outside a Waitrose supermarket in Bayswater, west London.
Zacariah Boulares, 19, has been jailed for two years after admitting to arming himself with a machete to steal luxury watches
Boulares was arrested by Metropolitan Police officers on February 21 last year—his 18th birthday
Ms Chenneour, wearing white, reached out as Boulares attempted to take her phone in February last year
Singer and television presenter Aled Jones was among Boulares’s targets; he was told he would be decapitated if he followed the thief after his Rolex was taken
Prosecutor Lydia Stephens said Boulares had “aggressively brandished a large blade” and subjected both men to “extreme intimidation”.
The victims told police that Boulares threatened them with words including, “Give me the watch or I’ll chop your hand off.” They believed they were moments away from being attacked, the court heard.
In a statement read in court, Mr Turner said: “I felt cornered, deeply unsettled, and forced to evaluate my immediate survival.”
“Handing over my property felt like the only way to avoid severe physical harm or worse,” he said.
Ten days later, Boulares chased Mr Tallantire and his partner as they walked towards Waitrose, swiping at them with the machete, prosecutors said.
A month earlier, he had targeted Jones, who rose to prominence in 1985 after recording the song Walking In The Air.
Judge Jandu questioned why the August robberies were only being dealt with three years later, particularly as Boulares had already been sentenced for similar offences.
The court heard that the delay was not Boulares’s fault. It was also told that he had received “no rehabilitative work” in prison, partly because these offences had remained unresolved.
Boulares was first sentenced for his attack on Mr Jones, at youth court in 2023 when he was too young to be publicly identified.
The teenager had trailed Mr Jones along a road on July 7 2023 and pulled out a machete, shouting ‘give me your Rolex or I will cut your arm off’.
After taking his £17,000 Daytona Rolex watch, Boulares noticed Mr Jones was following him from a distance, and he told him to ‘walk the other way or I will cut your head off’.
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He was sentenced for that offence to a 24-month youth detention and training order having also admitted stealing a £20,000 Rolex from a man in his 70s at Paddington station in west London in May 2023.
Then, in July 2025, Boulares was handed a 22-month prison sentence at Isleworth Crown Court for a string of crimes including the attempt to steal Ms Chenneour’s phone and a theft from a blind woman.
Genevieve Chenneour – pictured earlier this week in London – was also one of Boulares’ previous victims
CCTV captured the moment former athlete Ms Chenneour – who had been given fight training for past roles – confronted the would-be thief and wrestled him to the ground before striking him repeatedly with the phone he had tried to steal.
Boulares later admitted the crime, alongside the theft of a blind woman’s handbag at Five Guys in Thurloe Street, Kensington and stealing another woman’s rucksack as she dined at Pizza Pilgrims on Kingly Street in central London, in early 2025.
At that sentencing hearing, Judge Martin Edmunds KC, the Recorder of Kensington and Chelsea, said Boulares had targeted wealthy areas for ‘rich pickings’, in a ‘systematic pattern of stealing from people as they are enjoying a meal or refreshment at a restaurant’.
‘You seem to be plagued by an attitude that if people can afford nice things, then you can take them,’ he said.
Boulares appeared in the dock at Southwark Crown Court in August to plead guilty to the robbery of Mr Turner, having admitted the attempted robbery against Mr Tallantire at an earlier hearing.
He also pleaded guilty to possession of a machete during both incidents.
Boulares, from Feltham, south London, has now been jailed for an additional two years and 10 months for robbery, attempted robbery, and possession of a machete during both incidents.
Lydia Stevens, prosecuting, previously told the court Mr Tallantire and his partner Jonathan Lukes were shopping when they were approached by the teenager.
They saw Boulares pull a ‘large curved blade’ from his waistband or pocket, which he brandished at the executive’s wrist before chasing them down the road.
Mr Lukes told the court in a prepared statement: ‘We both ran, holding up a shopping bag to defend ourselves; he was chasing after us and shouting, ‘I’ll cut off your hand!”
Eventually the teenager abandoned his pursuit and was later picked up by police.
In his victim impact statement, Mr Tallantire said he had trouble sleeping and was receiving therapy for anxiety.
He said: ‘I no longer feel safe in a neighbourhood I’ve known for 30 years. I immediately panic where anyone tries to brush past me and am taken back to that day. I get chills down my spine.’
Mr Turner, whom Boulares had targeted ten days earlier, said he now wore a replica Rolex of no real value, adding: ‘Being threatened in a familiar place on a sunny afternoon had a lasting effect.’
The court heard Boulares has already accumulated 12 convictions for 28 offences, including violence, threatening behaviour, weapon possession and theft.
Last year, Chenneour spoke of the terrifying moment she fought off the teenage thug.
The actress, who appeared in season three of the Netflix hit show as rumour-monger Clara Livingston, told The Mail on Sunday last year: ‘They didn’t expect me to stand up for myself – but I did.’
Yorkshire-born Chenneour added: ‘I was left with a concussion just before the Screen Actors Guild Awards and since then, I’ve felt constantly on edge.
‘Even my dog was traumatised – now, if anyone touches me, he panics and tries to protect me. Getting a coffee shouldn’t be something you need your wits about you for.
‘I’m so grateful to the staff at Joe & The Juice – they were incredible during the incident and when I went back to see them after.’
