Pensioner who stole ancient map, jailed

A pensioner who stole an ancient map from a London museum has been jailed for three years

Melvin West was told by a judge he had led police, the courts and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich a “merry dance” over the whereabouts of the item which is 350 years old

The court was told the 70 year old had used a Stanley knife to slice it from an atlas in February last year.

The map, which has still not been found despite an earlier court hearing being adjourned so West could recover from heart surgery and return the item, was a celebrated example of a double hemisphere world map called Nova Orbis Tabula, the Metropolitan Police said.

Prosecution counsel Damian Warburton told the court the completed atlas was valued at around £50,000, with the stolen map worth £6,000 alone on the black market.

The court heard the value of the atlas has been reduced to £20,000 due to the missing page, but Mr Warburton said the “cultural loss far outweighs the financial loss”.

Police were called to the Caird Library at around 3pm on February 26 last year after staff found a knife on the floor of the viewing room where West had earlier been looking at the atlas.

It was then discovered that one of the maps was missing and had been “removed with the slash of a blade”, Mr Warburton told the court.

West had viewed the atlas on December 19 and 20 in 2024 and also on the day before he stole the page.

He was arrested at his address on March 4 last year, but the map was not there.

West pleaded guilty at Bromley Magistrates’ Court in May to theft, criminal damage and possession of a bladed article.

The judge said West was a career criminal, having been sentenced by a Hungarian court in 2011 for burglary and by a French court in 2013 for theft, and also had convictions under various identities.

She said the map was of “international cultural significance” and that the damage caused to the atlas had “permanently diminished what can be learned from it”.

The judge court was told de Wit’s atlases are unique, the two digital copies of the work are incomplete and now the original is “damaged forever”.

She added: “Even if you had returned the map, it cannot simply be put back and made good as new.”

Judge Welsh said the damage was an “international loss”, adding: “What you did and the damage you have done cannot be understated.

“What is lost and damaged is lost and damaged forever more, for everybody.”

The judge said she accepted that West had stolen the map for financial gain, adding: “You weren’t stealing pennies, or food, you were stealing a niche item worth an incredible amount of money.

“Anyone who steals an item like that knows full well the damage they are causing.”

Sentencing West to three years in prison for criminal damage, with concurrent sentences of 16 months for theft and six months for possession of a blade, the judge said she would not suspend the sentence.

She said: “Offences of this nature call for an immediate sentence of imprisonment to deter other people from doing precisely what you have.”

In a victim impact statement, the museum said the loss of the centrepiece map of the atlas, which scholars from around the world travel to study, “undermines its bibliographical integrity”.

The museum has had to spend thousands of pounds reviewing its security arrangements and has been left with the “very real concern this could inspire copycat crimes targeting other items in the collection”.

Detective Constable Sophie Hayes, of the Met Police’s art and antiques unit, said after the sentencing:

“We are appealing to anyone who has knowledge of the map’s whereabouts to do the right thing and contact the Metropolitan Police so that it can be returned to the library.

“The Caird Library is an internationally important resource, used by scholars the world over.

“Thefts like this mean the only people who profit from these beautiful artefacts are the thieves themselves.”

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