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UK man jailed for slicing and stealing 350-year-old map with knife refuses to reveal its location
The man was caught on CCTV slicing a map and hiding it underneath his clothing.
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In a museum heist that damaged an irreplaceable 1684 atlas, a UK man has been jailed for using a knife to slice out and steal a 350-year-old map, only to stubbornly refuse to reveal its whereabouts. CCTV captured Melvin West cutting the Dutch cartographic masterpiece from the Caird Library's collection at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich before slipping it under his clothing. While the Met's Art and Antiques Unit tracked down and arrested West, the thief answered "no comment" to interrogations, keeping the artefact unaccounted for.
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“Melvin West, 72 (21.05.1954), was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment at Woolwich Crown Court on Thursday, 22 October after pleading guilty at Bromley Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, 19 May to theft, criminal damage and possession of a bladed article,” Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
How was the theft discovered?
A library employee got suspicious after finding a small knife on the floor under a desk. The staff quickly realised that West had been using the desk and that he was viewing an atlas printed in 1684. It was then discovered that the volume was missing one of its 12 maps.
The “CCTV enquiries showed how he removed the map from the book using a small knife and concealed it in his clothing.”
What did the missing map show?
Met Police stated, “The missing page was a celebrated example of a double hemisphere world map, called Nova Orbis Tabula, by seventeenth-century Dutch cartographer Frederick de Wit.”
The police then arrested West from his home in East London’s Chingford. In the interview with the cops, he answered "no comment" to most of the questions.
Police appeal to the public for information:
“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 police said in a statement.
It added, “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.”
What did the library say?
Reacting to the incident, a spokesperson said, “We are pleased the criminal case, on which we co-operated closely with the Metropolitan Police’s Art and Antiques Unit, has been brought to a close.”
