17-07-2025
Why no one may ever be charged over the British Museum thefts
The lawyers were dressed in black robes and horsehair wigs. The judge, the Honourable Michael Beloff KC, had taken his seat on the bench, and the prosecution was about to outline its case against the defendant. Even the sliding brass lids of the inkwells on the oak benches had been polished to a high gleam.
Beneath the vaulted ceiling of the courtroom the case against Joseph Duveen was outlined. It was alleged that as a respected senior curator at the prestigious Cornish Museum he had access to the storerooms where thousands of ancient artefacts were kept. Many of them had yet to be catalogued and few were in any danger of going on public display because there were so many other examples to choose from.
It was alleged by the prosecuting barrister Claude Dancer that, over the course of the previous few years, Duveen had sold dozens of historic artefacts on eBay for a fraction of their true worth. It was only when an eagle-eyed expert recognised them as objects that had previously been donated to the Cornish Museum, and was able to raise the alarm, that the thefts were even noticed.
Duveen was also charged with criminal damage to the items when they were prised out of gold mounts or had identifying marks erased to make it difficult to positively establish where they had come from.
If this sounds familiar, it is. Peter Higgs, the former curator of Greek and Roman antiquities at the British Museum, was questioned nearly two years ago in connection with the apparent disappearance of an estimated 1,500 objects from a locked departmental storeroom.
Like the Cornish Museum, the British Museum had to admit, in the wake of the scandal, that a significant portion of its collection was not fully catalogued, and, therefore, it could be difficult to prove that many of the missing items – including gold jewellery, semi-precious stones and ancient glassware – belonged to the museum.
Despite months of investigation and even a BBC series on the case, Higgs has not been charged with any offence, although the museum has sacked him and is bringing a civil case against him.
The scandal led to the resignation of the museum's then director Hartwig Fischer. Higgs has denied any criminal act and it is not clear what stage the investigation has reached.
Roger Michel, a former lawyer and the founder of the Banbury-based Institute for Digital Archaeology, spent months orchestrating a mock trial partly out of frustration that many museums have failed to take advantage of advances in technology that would enable them to keep a better grasp on their collections. The cast of his mock trial included academics, collectors, campaigners, real lawyers and a distinguished KC.
Participants were given pseudonyms from Hollywood courtroom dramas as well as historic figures from the museum world, and he began with a disclaimer that 'any resemblance to any person alive or dead is purely coincidental'.
The hearing took place in Oxford 's historic crown court, which saw more than a century and a half of murderers, thieves and swindlers led down the steep tiled steps from the dock before it was turned into an event space often used as a set for TV dramas.
Michel, a former US lawyer and assistant district attorney in Massachusetts who now lives in Oxford, played the part of the prosecutor. Michael Beloff, a former president of Michel's alma mater Trinity College and a King's Counsel, had graciously agreed to take part to ensure proceedings kept as close as possible to real life. Condensing a trial that would probably take three weeks into an afternoon meant all corners were cut, but the only real jarring was caused by the presence of three cameramen trying to capture every cough and spit for a possible future BBC documentary. Cameras, of course, are rarely allowed in real courts.
Michel opened proceedings with a list of 10 items supposedly sold by Duveen – played by tech entrepreneur Robert Brooker – on eBay. Duveen's defence counsel Elle Woods, played by Liz Sawyer, a former antiquities dealer who is shortly to start a new life as a real-life barrister, pointed out that one item in the list was actually ancient Egyptian and would not have come under his department. First point scored.
She also pointed out that although the fictional charge was 'handling stolen goods', none of the items had been reported missing let alone stolen, and Duveen, a respected curator with an unblemished 28-year record at the Cornish Museum, had not been charged with theft.
Michel's extravagantly coiffed eyebrows crept closer to his wig, which happened to be exactly the same colour, and looked ready to merge into a single hairpiece. His pseudonymous character Claude Dancer was the hotshot prosecutor played by George C Scott in the 1959 classic Anatomy of a Murder. Elle Woods is, of course, the lawyer played by Reese Witherspoon in the Legally Blonde films.
To the judge's irritation, Michel kept resorting to an American style of legal interjection, which included saying 'objection' and 'asked and answered' at every opportunity.
With her own laser-like focus, Miss Sawyer beamed in on one element in the prosecution's case. She said: 'Is this man likely to throw away his career, his life and his reputation for a handful of trinkets? You have heard the two charges made against my client: handling stolen goods and criminal damage. He has not been charged with theft. A fundamental part of that charge is that the goods were stolen. But Duveen has not been charged with theft.
'This is essentially a charge with a gaping hole: stolen goods and no thief. There is no charge of theft because the prosecution have no evidence of theft. There is no thief because there was no theft; there was no theft and there are no stolen goods. That is because Duveen never stole anything.
'This was legitimate online activity in which he was selling his own, legitimately owned artefacts. It has been misconstrued as criminal by people who have simply leapt to the wrong conclusions.'
The killer witness for the defence was antiquities collector and dealer Hamilton White, a real person, who showed off an enamel cross and an 18th-century child's toy cannon, both of which looked like rare and valuable items. He then produced from his voluminous pockets dozens of identical items to prove that things we may think of as 'unique', 'rare' or 'priceless' are very rarely that. Museums may have dozens or even hundreds of almost identical items in their stores but only the very best will ever be put on display. 'Deaccessioning' – officially removing an item from a museum in order to sell it – is a fact of life in many museums but one that is not much talked about.
It it not known, however, if Peter Higgs was ever given permission by the British Museum to deaccession any items in the collection.
The mock court heard detailed evidence from the academic researcher who first realised items from the Cornish Museum were being sold on eBay.
The court also heard evidence from Lois Lane, the journalist who linked the seller's identity to Duveen, and detective Frederick Abberline, who led the investigation.
Like most of the 20-plus people invited to participate, I am someone Michel has worked with in the past. I was asked to play the role of foreman of the jury of six, and before we were sent out to deliberate, we were told by the judge we had to return a unanimous verdict.
Despite having covered dozens of court cases during the course of my journalistic career, I had never been in a jury room, and had only a vague idea what I was supposed to do. I began by asking my fellow jurors if any of them was convinced one way or the other. Juror Meghana Kalagana, a student at the London School of Economics, surprised me by declaring that the defendant was 'not guilty' on either charge. Going round the table everyone agreed, and we had a unanimous verdict before we'd even begun any discussion.
The reason was not that we believed Duveen to be innocent or that he'd put up a particularly convincing case in the witness box, but that the case against him had not been proven 'beyond reasonable doubt'. Was that the result of sloppiness in the presentation of the fictional charges or the difficulty of proving something when there was no 'killer' evidence such as the discovery of a box of stolen artefacts in his home? It made us realise, as fake jurors, that 'beyond reasonable doubt' is a high standard to meet when you are dealing with the theft of and damage to objects that are thousands of years old.
Michel, casting off his fictitious character, said this had been his intention all along. He wants to draw attention to the failure of the museum world to take advantage of the latest technology to record and catalogue items in their collections.
He said: 'There's a whole host of technology that can do a lot of the tedious stuff for them, such as recording objects and keeping track of them, so museums know exactly what they've got. The thefts from the British Museum highlighted that even our most august institutions are way behind the times.'
