Evening Standard: How safe are London's art galleries and museums?
By David Rowan
If we had any doubts that we had found the right man to test the security of London's museums, they evaporated when a mobile phone rang as he led me through the National Gallery's central concourse. "Hello?" said Charles Hill, a 56-year-old former Scotland Yard detective who now spends his days tracking stolen artworks and helping owners prevent thefts. "So we're definitely on? Right. I'll be there tomorrow."
A day later, Mr Hill collected an £8 million painting by Titian which the caller had arranged to be left in a plastic bag next to a Richmond bus stop. The masterpiece, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, had been stoIen in 1995 from Lord Bath's Longleat estate, and it was only now, thanks to a deal struck by Mr Hill with a crime-world contact, that it was finally on its way home.
Living much of his life in this shadowy underworld, Mr Hill, a former head of Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Squad, who also engineered the return of Munch's The Scream in 1994 after it was stolen, would describe the middleman only as "a cross between Arthur Daley and Lovejoy". For identities are closely guarded in this murky world - which is why Mr Hill, for his own part, refuses to be photographed.
He is, however, keen to use his detective skills to expose the security weaknesses at some of London's leading museums and galleries. As one of Britain's leading experts on museum security, he knows how vulnerable some of them are to organised art gangs and opportunist thieves, and he seeks to encourage greater vigilance.
As it became clear while spending a day with him in a variety of galleries and museums, it would take only a screwdriver, a diamond-tipped glasscutter or a 50p hacksaw blade to capture artworks worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Had I been so disposed, I could have returned home that evening with a small Greek statue worth perhaps £50,000, a delicate Pre-Raphaelite painting that might fetch £200,000 if it could be sold and a set of handwritten letters by some of the great Victorian authors that might raise £100,000 at auction.
As Mr Hill's investigation made clear, art collections across London are ignoring the most basic security precautions and placing countless valuable works at risk, from second-century Roman statuettes to silver-pIated cigar cases - imperilling a wide range of our cultural heritage.
In the past month, the cash-strapped British Museum has lost a 2,500-year-old marble statue from an unguarded gallery while packed with summer tourists. Then last week, the Dickens House Museum in Holborn, one of London's more delightful historic treasure-troves, announced the daytime theft of three copies of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. The first editions, each worth between £20,000 and £30,000, were removed after a glasscutter cut open a locked display cabinet.
Thefts from museums and galleries are rare, thankfully, but for the determined art thief the riches on display can prove irresistible. In recent years the British Museum the V&A and the Dulwich Picture Gallery have all reported losses from open displays or storage vaults. These, at least, were all publicised thefts.
What concerns some art-world experts is the painful lesson drawn from the case of Stephane Breitwieser, the French waiter who stole 239 artworks from smaller museums across Europe in a six-year spree that ended last November. Many organisations did not even report their losses, fearful for their reputations or their insurability.
"People don't generally steal things because of a sudden whim — it's calculated and intended," explains Mr Hill, a jovial, well~built man in a white suit, who stays in contact with half a dozen underworld informants.
"Either you're dealing with professionally dishonest people, or the opportunists, who think they can knock an artwork out in some street market. But it's rare for a masterpiece to be taken - normally the criminals go for something they can run with."
First on our itinerary is Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn, an extraordinarily richly furnished building which the great architect insisted be left "as nearly as possible" untouched after his death in 1837. Today it is guarded by around a dozen women and men.
This, Mr Hill says, is the goldmine many of his contacts mention as an "easy target": thousands of works are on open display, from masterpieces by Turner, Canaletto and Hogarth to ancient Egyptian sarcophagi. The front-hallway still displays the bullet-hole from a failed raid 15 years ago when Dennis Bergin, 26, was shot dead by police after bursting in with a shortened 410 shotgun.
"This place is a cornucopia," Mr Hill says. "It's particularly vulnerable, as it's so exposed. It's very genteel, but if a thief from the streets of Harlesden came in, can you imagine any of the ladies here doing anything but screaming and running for the police?
"It doesn't make any sense why someone would risk their life to come in and steal a Canaletto that they couldn't sell, but they might look at a small, ancient statue on display and decide they could get £20 for it in the East End. Thankfully, it doesn't happen as often as it could, as these guys feel slightly awkward in a place like this."
Mr Hill says that security has improved since the 1987 raid, "when the average age of the attendants was about 104 and the burglar alarm had been the one on the Ark".
"They have put in infrared detectors and improved the alarm system, and have cleverly wired down items. But there are no visible video cameras, and in the basement you can see that almost anything could go to a determined amateur."
Although the museum asks that bags be left at the entrance, American tourists walk through its artefact-filled rooms carrying large holdalls. I am able to touch a number of small exhibits undisturbed.
At the British Museum, Mr Hill is more impressed, although he warns that its financial problem and poor staff morale will increase the risks: a valuable Greek statue was stolen only this month.
The museum's high-security display cases score well. "That's good, tough glass, and they've clearly spent a lot of money on these cases to good effect," says Mr Hill. But he worries about the risks of losses from storage areas: "I've been downstairs to the great vaults, and they're not so safe. You also have to worry when you have contractors in."
Mr Hill suggests more visible security cameras to deter casual thieves. He also finds specific problems in galleries where items are mounted on the walls. "Look at that beautiful piece held down by screws," he says. "It wouldn't take long to prise that away with a screwdriver and it would fit neatly into a backpack."
He also explains how a thief might remove a 2,000-year-old marble head from its stand. "They'd have a lookout, do a bit of cutting with a hacksaw blade, and keep coming back. They wouldn't hang around."
On to the National Gallery, which Mr Hill believes has some of the best security measures in London. The gallery has learned from past mistakes. In 1961 Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington was stolen after a man stayed in the downstairs lavatory until closing time and then emerged when the coast was clear to remove the newspaper-sized painting and escape with it through the lavatory window.
The thief, an unemployed bus driver, attempted to ransom the portrait to buy television licences for the poor. Today the lavatories close 10 minutes before the gallery.
At times, sheer luck has prevented worse potential losses. "The last bunch that tried to break in here came out of a nearby pub to discover that their car had been clamped," Mr Hill recalls. "In the back of the car, police found crowbars, screwdrivers, the works. It shows that traffic wardens can be useful."
Today, he says, thieves would target the smaller paintings that are not well-enough known to be unsaleable. "The gallery has covered over the screws to make them hard to remove, which is good, but a thief would just need to get the guard running in the other direction to get his chance."
But it is the smaller London galleries, often with limited security budgets, that face the greatest threats. Some, like the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, are also "unlucky" in being based in London's rougher quarters.
In 1995, a mentally disturbed man attacked artworks there, and the previous year burglars stole paintings and china worth about £250,000. Today, visitors are left alone in darkened rooms. Some paintings are held down with unsecured open screws, and there appear to be blind spots below the black-and-white video cameras.
The Dickens House Museum, the Georgian former residence of Charles Dickens, which preserves the writer's furniture and possessions, continues to display weaknesses.
Museum security has to be a balance of weighing up vulnerability to fire, damage and theft, manageability - working with what you've got in terms of people, technical security equipment and money — and having the wit, strength of character and imagination to anticipate problems, Mr Hill says. "But you have to keep these things in proportion — you can't create a fortress."
At Sir John Soane's Museum, the curator, Margaret Richardson, was furious to learn of the Standard's findings. "I'm staggered that Mr Hill should say such things," she said. "It's absolutely appalling for him to come in here and conduct an audit."
Mrs Richardson believed that Mr Hill was out of touch. "We've spent a tremendous amount on security in the last 10 years, and I think it's absolutely up to standard. We have a high warder ratio and a lot of items are fastened down pretty securely. Yes, someone could come and yank things off — but I don't think it's that easy."
The keeper of the William Morris Gallery, Norah Gillow, took a more positive view. "I don't want to be complacent, and reminders like this show that you never can be too vigilant," she said.
Iain Slessor, national security adviser for Resource, which advises Britain's museums, said: "When you think of the number of museums in London and the number of items on display, the level of crime is very small. London's commercial galleries suffer perhaps 50 times the losses from a national or public gallery But to be absolutely sure that nothing would be lost or damaged you just wouldn't show anything."
(Evening Standard, August 28 2002)
If we had any doubts that we had found the right man to test the security of London's museums, they evaporated when a mobile phone rang as he led me through the National Gallery's central concourse. "Hello?" said Charles Hill, a 56-year-old former Scotland Yard detective who now spends his days tracking stolen artworks and helping owners prevent thefts. "So we're definitely on? Right. I'll be there tomorrow."
A day later, Mr Hill collected an £8 million painting by Titian which the caller had arranged to be left in a plastic bag next to a Richmond bus stop. The masterpiece, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, had been stoIen in 1995 from Lord Bath's Longleat estate, and it was only now, thanks to a deal struck by Mr Hill with a crime-world contact, that it was finally on its way home.
Living much of his life in this shadowy underworld, Mr Hill, a former head of Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Squad, who also engineered the return of Munch's The Scream in 1994 after it was stolen, would describe the middleman only as "a cross between Arthur Daley and Lovejoy". For identities are closely guarded in this murky world - which is why Mr Hill, for his own part, refuses to be photographed.
He is, however, keen to use his detective skills to expose the security weaknesses at some of London's leading museums and galleries. As one of Britain's leading experts on museum security, he knows how vulnerable some of them are to organised art gangs and opportunist thieves, and he seeks to encourage greater vigilance.
As it became clear while spending a day with him in a variety of galleries and museums, it would take only a screwdriver, a diamond-tipped glasscutter or a 50p hacksaw blade to capture artworks worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Had I been so disposed, I could have returned home that evening with a small Greek statue worth perhaps £50,000, a delicate Pre-Raphaelite painting that might fetch £200,000 if it could be sold and a set of handwritten letters by some of the great Victorian authors that might raise £100,000 at auction.
As Mr Hill's investigation made clear, art collections across London are ignoring the most basic security precautions and placing countless valuable works at risk, from second-century Roman statuettes to silver-pIated cigar cases - imperilling a wide range of our cultural heritage.
In the past month, the cash-strapped British Museum has lost a 2,500-year-old marble statue from an unguarded gallery while packed with summer tourists. Then last week, the Dickens House Museum in Holborn, one of London's more delightful historic treasure-troves, announced the daytime theft of three copies of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. The first editions, each worth between £20,000 and £30,000, were removed after a glasscutter cut open a locked display cabinet.
Thefts from museums and galleries are rare, thankfully, but for the determined art thief the riches on display can prove irresistible. In recent years the British Museum the V&A and the Dulwich Picture Gallery have all reported losses from open displays or storage vaults. These, at least, were all publicised thefts.
What concerns some art-world experts is the painful lesson drawn from the case of Stephane Breitwieser, the French waiter who stole 239 artworks from smaller museums across Europe in a six-year spree that ended last November. Many organisations did not even report their losses, fearful for their reputations or their insurability.
"People don't generally steal things because of a sudden whim — it's calculated and intended," explains Mr Hill, a jovial, well~built man in a white suit, who stays in contact with half a dozen underworld informants.
"Either you're dealing with professionally dishonest people, or the opportunists, who think they can knock an artwork out in some street market. But it's rare for a masterpiece to be taken - normally the criminals go for something they can run with."
First on our itinerary is Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn, an extraordinarily richly furnished building which the great architect insisted be left "as nearly as possible" untouched after his death in 1837. Today it is guarded by around a dozen women and men.
This, Mr Hill says, is the goldmine many of his contacts mention as an "easy target": thousands of works are on open display, from masterpieces by Turner, Canaletto and Hogarth to ancient Egyptian sarcophagi. The front-hallway still displays the bullet-hole from a failed raid 15 years ago when Dennis Bergin, 26, was shot dead by police after bursting in with a shortened 410 shotgun.
"This place is a cornucopia," Mr Hill says. "It's particularly vulnerable, as it's so exposed. It's very genteel, but if a thief from the streets of Harlesden came in, can you imagine any of the ladies here doing anything but screaming and running for the police?
"It doesn't make any sense why someone would risk their life to come in and steal a Canaletto that they couldn't sell, but they might look at a small, ancient statue on display and decide they could get £20 for it in the East End. Thankfully, it doesn't happen as often as it could, as these guys feel slightly awkward in a place like this."
Mr Hill says that security has improved since the 1987 raid, "when the average age of the attendants was about 104 and the burglar alarm had been the one on the Ark".
"They have put in infrared detectors and improved the alarm system, and have cleverly wired down items. But there are no visible video cameras, and in the basement you can see that almost anything could go to a determined amateur."
Although the museum asks that bags be left at the entrance, American tourists walk through its artefact-filled rooms carrying large holdalls. I am able to touch a number of small exhibits undisturbed.
At the British Museum, Mr Hill is more impressed, although he warns that its financial problem and poor staff morale will increase the risks: a valuable Greek statue was stolen only this month.
The museum's high-security display cases score well. "That's good, tough glass, and they've clearly spent a lot of money on these cases to good effect," says Mr Hill. But he worries about the risks of losses from storage areas: "I've been downstairs to the great vaults, and they're not so safe. You also have to worry when you have contractors in."
Mr Hill suggests more visible security cameras to deter casual thieves. He also finds specific problems in galleries where items are mounted on the walls. "Look at that beautiful piece held down by screws," he says. "It wouldn't take long to prise that away with a screwdriver and it would fit neatly into a backpack."
He also explains how a thief might remove a 2,000-year-old marble head from its stand. "They'd have a lookout, do a bit of cutting with a hacksaw blade, and keep coming back. They wouldn't hang around."
On to the National Gallery, which Mr Hill believes has some of the best security measures in London. The gallery has learned from past mistakes. In 1961 Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington was stolen after a man stayed in the downstairs lavatory until closing time and then emerged when the coast was clear to remove the newspaper-sized painting and escape with it through the lavatory window.
The thief, an unemployed bus driver, attempted to ransom the portrait to buy television licences for the poor. Today the lavatories close 10 minutes before the gallery.
At times, sheer luck has prevented worse potential losses. "The last bunch that tried to break in here came out of a nearby pub to discover that their car had been clamped," Mr Hill recalls. "In the back of the car, police found crowbars, screwdrivers, the works. It shows that traffic wardens can be useful."
Today, he says, thieves would target the smaller paintings that are not well-enough known to be unsaleable. "The gallery has covered over the screws to make them hard to remove, which is good, but a thief would just need to get the guard running in the other direction to get his chance."
But it is the smaller London galleries, often with limited security budgets, that face the greatest threats. Some, like the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, are also "unlucky" in being based in London's rougher quarters.
In 1995, a mentally disturbed man attacked artworks there, and the previous year burglars stole paintings and china worth about £250,000. Today, visitors are left alone in darkened rooms. Some paintings are held down with unsecured open screws, and there appear to be blind spots below the black-and-white video cameras.
The Dickens House Museum, the Georgian former residence of Charles Dickens, which preserves the writer's furniture and possessions, continues to display weaknesses.
Museum security has to be a balance of weighing up vulnerability to fire, damage and theft, manageability - working with what you've got in terms of people, technical security equipment and money — and having the wit, strength of character and imagination to anticipate problems, Mr Hill says. "But you have to keep these things in proportion — you can't create a fortress."
At Sir John Soane's Museum, the curator, Margaret Richardson, was furious to learn of the Standard's findings. "I'm staggered that Mr Hill should say such things," she said. "It's absolutely appalling for him to come in here and conduct an audit."
Mrs Richardson believed that Mr Hill was out of touch. "We've spent a tremendous amount on security in the last 10 years, and I think it's absolutely up to standard. We have a high warder ratio and a lot of items are fastened down pretty securely. Yes, someone could come and yank things off — but I don't think it's that easy."
The keeper of the William Morris Gallery, Norah Gillow, took a more positive view. "I don't want to be complacent, and reminders like this show that you never can be too vigilant," she said.
Iain Slessor, national security adviser for Resource, which advises Britain's museums, said: "When you think of the number of museums in London and the number of items on display, the level of crime is very small. London's commercial galleries suffer perhaps 50 times the losses from a national or public gallery But to be absolutely sure that nothing would be lost or damaged you just wouldn't show anything."
(Evening Standard, August 28 2002)
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, August 28, 2002
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