Nabila Habiby, 39, secured £31,500 in loans by taking Edgar Davids' art collection to pawnbrokers after he trusted her to move the pieces into storage during a house move15:37, 04 Sep 2026Updated 15:58, 04 Sep 2026A fraudster who pawned ex-Premier League star Edgar Davids' £188,000 art collection has failed to turn up to court to be sentenced, claiming she had been struck with a bag on her way to the airport.Wealth manager Nabila Habiby, 39, was trusted to put 37 of Davids' paintings and other artworks into storage during a house move.Instead, she used them to secure £31,500 in loans before the pieces were sold to collectors around the world.Mr Davids, a former Spurs and Ajax midfielder, only discovered the pieces were gone when a buyer contacted him asking about the history of one of the paintings.Habiby pleaded guilty in September 2025 to two counts of fraud, and was set free on bail with a warning that she could face up to 34 months in prison. But more than a year later, she still has not been sentenced.The first attempt to sentence her, in March, was derailed when she made a failed bid to withdraw her guilty pleas.Today, Habiby was absent from the dock at Wood Green Crown Court, where she was due to be sentenced again.Defence barrister Hannah Thomas said: "I received correspondence this morning from my solicitor, at around 9.30am, saying on her way to the airport to come here she had been hit on the head by a piece of luggage en route."She had a concussion, since she passed out, and was taken to the hospital where she remains on a drip."Judge Emma Deacon KC said she had been handed "inadequate" medical evidence from Belgium, where Habiby now lives, to support her story.But the judge agreed to adjourn the sentencing hearing anyway, so that the original judge who oversaw the case when guilty pleas were entered could pass sentence.Habiby was first charged after a probe by the Metropolitan Police over fraud offences dating back to 2015 and 2016.The court heard Davids had given Habiby the keys to his home in Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire, when he was moving to an apartment in central London in December 2014.She took his collection of works by artists Paul Insect and Ron English, which he had bought from the Opera Gallery in New York between 2006 and 2012, to pawnbrokers.Article continues belowSome of the paintings have since been recovered, but 25 works of art are gone.Habiby has been ordered to come to court on September 23 to be sentenced. She has also been told to provide a full medical report to back up her absence from court on Friday.