Edgar Davids Art Fraud Case Sentencing Delayed Again

The long-running fraud case over Edgar Davids’s missing art collection took another twist in London on Friday, as the woman who admitted pawning the former Dutch international’s works failed to show up for sentencing.

Nabila Habiby, 39, was due to be sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court in north London, more than a year after she pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud. She has already been warned she could face up to 34 months in prison.

She did not appear.

Her defence barrister, Hannah Thomas, told the court that Habiby, who now lives in Belgium, claimed she had been struck on the head by a piece of luggage on her way to the airport.

“I received correspondence this morning from my solicitor, at around 9.30am (0830 GMT), saying on her way to the airport to come here she had been hit on the head by a piece of luggage en route,” Thomas said. “She had a concussion, since she passed out, and was taken to the hospital where she remains on a drip.”

Judge Emma Deacon was handed medical documents from Belgium but described the evidence as “inadequate”. Even so, she agreed to adjourn the hearing so that the original judge who took Habiby’s guilty pleas can pass sentence.

The delay extends a saga that has now dragged on for almost five years since Habiby was first charged, following a Metropolitan Police investigation into fraud offences dating back to 2015 and 2016. An earlier attempt to sentence her collapsed in March when she made an unsuccessful bid to withdraw her guilty pleas.

At the heart of the case is a modern art collection once owned by Davids, the former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder and Dutch international who was renowned on the pitch for his distinctive goggles and relentless style. Off it, he had built up a valuable collection of contemporary works.

The court heard that in December 2014, as Davids was moving from his home in Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire, to an apartment in central London, he handed Habiby — then working as a wealth manager — the keys to his house and entrusted her with arranging storage for his possessions.

Among them: 37 paintings and works of art by Paul Insect and Ron English, bought from the Opera Gallery in New York between 2006 and 2012. The collection was valued at £188,000 ($254,000).

Instead of placing them in storage, Habiby took the pieces to pawnbrokers and secured loans totalling £31,500 against them. Davids remained unaware until she defaulted on the loans, the pawn shops sold the art on to collectors around the world, and one buyer contacted him to ask about the painting’s history.

Only then did he realise his collection had gone.

Some of the works have since been recovered, but the court was told that 25 pieces are still missing.

Habiby, who was granted bail after entering her guilty pleas in September 2025, has now been ordered to attend court for sentencing on 23 September and to provide a full medical report explaining her absence on Friday.

Nearly a decade after Davids handed over his house keys, the question remains: when will this case finally close, and how much of his lost collection will ever be seen again?