The millionaire, his neighbour’s alarm and a shotgun blast in the night

Arrested: Peter Shalson, with wife Polly, is accused of breaking into his neighbour’s home

One of Britain's richest men is at the centre of a police investigation into allegations of firearms offences and a burglary after a neighbour's house alarm was blasted with a shotgun when it kept ringing in the middle of the night.

Tycoon Peter Shalson, 52, has been arrested and questioned about an intrusion in a neighbouring home in St John's Wood.

The father-of-three, who reportedly spent £2 million hiring Elton John to play at his wedding party at the Roundhouse in Camden, has been released on bail pending further inquiries.

Neighbours of Mr Shalson are understood to have been away on a countryside break when the intrusion took place shortly after midnight on
3 January.

A butler at the neighbour's house today told how someone had called the owners of the house to warn them that their alarm had gone off.

They apparently informed the caller that they would be home in London within two hours when they could deal with the alarm.

What happened next is now being investigated by detectives from Westminster police.

The butler, who described himself only as James, said CCTV had caught images of a man climbing his employer's cast-iron fence, mounting some side steps to the back of the house and then smashing the glass back door.

The intruder allegedly then shot the burglar alarm control box to stop the alarm from ringing and calmly returned the way he had come.

The butler said that the owners — a family of five — returned to find their back door smashed, their alarm in pieces and an empty cartridge lying on the floor.

When the neighbours asked Mr Shalson about the damage, he apparently said he knew nothing about it.

The butler said: "Nobody was here, the alarm was faulty and it doesn't stop.

"The bad thing is, instead of calling the police to ask them to switch it off, someone seems to have come into the house to do it themselves."

The tycoon — who has been a Labour donor in the past — made his fortune after leaving school in Hendon early and building up the coathanger supplier Braitrim in the East End.

After transforming it into a packaging business, he eventually sold the company for a reported £109 million. He has since re-invented his business career as a pub entrepreneur with the company Pubfolio and venture capital group SGI.

He has also helped fund Barnet city academy school with a £1.5 million grant and has donated money to Hampstead Theatre, among other good causes. He recently hosted a fundraising dinner at the Dorchester, where guests included Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone.

Today, lights were on inside Mr Shalson's £10 million detached four-storey house which has a pool and a car lift to underground parking, but a housekeeper said that he was not at home.

Neighbours said they had not seen Mr Shalson since the break-in on 3 January.

A man arrived outside his house to deliver a black Carrera GT, believed to belong to Mr Shalson. Another vehicle, a black Range Rover, was also parked in the drive way.

A Met Police spokeswoman said: "Officers were called at just after midnight on the 3 January to allegations of shots fired in a street in St John's Wood.

"On 13 January a 52-year-old man attended a central London police station by appointment and was arrested on suspicion of burglary and firearms offences."

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