Songs Of Praise presenter Aled Jones was allegedly robbed of his £17,000 Rolex watch by a teenager who threatened him with a machete.

The Welsh singer, 52, was reportedly targeted while he was with his son Lucas on Friday 7 July near their home in southwest London.

The father of two, who found fame as a 12-year-old choirboy with the Christmas classic Walking In The Air, was left “shocked” and “shaken” but was “quite relieved” they were not hurt, according to The Sun.

Police said a 16-year-old boy – who cannot be identified because of his age – was arrested over the robbery in Chiswick that afternoon, and charged a week later.

He appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court to deny two charges – including possessing an offensive weapon in a public place and the robbery of Jones’s Rolex Daytona watch, according to court records.

The youth was bailed ahead of his trial at Wimbledon youth court on 24 August, the Metropolitan Police said.

Since 2015, the number of stolen watches recorded in England and Wales has nearly doubled – from 6,696 then to 11,035 last year, according to data from Watchfinder & Co that was shared with Sky News last month. More than 6,000 of these thefts were in London.

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Former world boxing champion Amir Khan, 36, was forced to hand over his £70,000 Franck Muller watch in a gunpoint robbery outside the Sahara Grill restaurant in Leyton, east London, in April last year.

And Formula One driver Lando Norris, 23, had his watch stolen as he left the Euro 2020 final at Wembley Stadium.

Last month, former watch dealer Paul Thorpe said stealing expensive watches and selling them on the black market has become “more lucrative than drugs” – and that a week’s worth of stealing high-end watches in London could make “more money than some people would earn in a lifetime”.

“It’s an industry all in itself. And I think in many areas, it’s actually overtaken drugs as the crime of choice for some criminal gangs,” he said.

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