The Book Thief
Woolley Bevis Diplock have recently been involved in a high-profile and well reported case relating to the theft of nearly £250,000 worth of rare books from the private collection of one of the world’s most powerful financiers.
Among the books stolen was a signed, first edition of the ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) which was purchased by our client for £22,000 at auction.
A well-known bookseller and collector (“the thief”) stole 32 books from the private collection over a period of 7 years and then, using his good reputation within the trade, he sold the books through various auction houses for significant sums of money.
The thief admitted stealing the books in order to pay off huge debts and was jailed in February for 2 years. At his sentencing hearing, his barrister said that the thief was a “ruined man who faced bankruptcy and was likely to lose £100,000 of assets”.
The thief was estimated to have made £162,000 from the sale of the rare books and a compensation order was made ordering him to pay nearly £90,000 to the original owner.
At the sentencing hearing the judge also made a restitution order which ordered our client to return the book to the original owner and accordingly, he was out of pocket to the sum of approximately £22,000.
However, we successfully recovered from the thief all the sums due to our client. This was an amazing result and our client has commented as follows:
“A signed early edition of T.E. Lawrence’s ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ is the ‘Holy Grail’ for serious book collectors. I was delighted to find a copy several years ago after a search lasting twenty years, and subsequently stunned to discover that I had no ownership rights when the theft came to light – the maxim of ‘caveat emptor’ has never been more appropriate.
My initial expectations of success in recovering the money spent on the book were not high, but during Rebecca Turnbull-Simpson’s investigation of the case, I was most impressed by her tenacity and commitment to a successful outcome, as well as her creativity of approach. I was kept informed of progress on a very regular basis, consulted on the options available, and she demonstrated skills of relationship management that were exemplary for someone at such an early stage of her career.”
This is how we did it...
-
The original owner
Section 21(1) of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 makes it clear that where goods are sold by a person who is not the owner and who does not sell the goods under the authority or with the consent of the owner, the buyer acquires no better title to the goods than the seller had.
The thief was not the owner of the book and did not have the authority or the consent of the original owner to sell it. Accordingly, legal ownership of the book remained with the original owner from whom the book was stolen. It did not matter that our client had purchased the book in good faith and with no knowledge that the book was stolen.
-
The auction house
The auction house was acting as an agent and was not a party to the contract for the sale of the book. Further, the auction house’s terms and conditions of business made it clear that, “(a)ny representation or statement made by the Auctioneer…as to provenance…is a statement of opinion only” and “No warranty whatsoever is given by the Auctioneer”.
Therefore, unfortunately, our client had no legal recourse against the auction house through which the book had been sold.
-
The thief
Under Section 12 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979, it was an implied term of the contract, between our client and the thief, that the thief had the right to sell the book.
The thief clearly breached this term of the contract and accordingly, our client did have a claim for damages against the thief for the losses which he incurred.
After charging the thief, the police were free to disclose to this firm the thief’s name and address. We issued proceedings against the thief for the amount which our client had paid for the book at auction, served the claim upon him in prison and then obtained a county court judgment for the total sum due to our client, including interest.
The thief failed to pay the sums due under the judgment. We were concerned that, in view of the thief’s debt problems and the level of the compensation order, there would be no assets to cover the sums due to our client.
However, our client took the decision to proceed with enforcement action. As the thief was in jail, there was no opportunity to obtain an attachment of earnings order as he was not employed! After various investigations, we confirmed that the thief jointly owned a property with his wife and accordingly, we obtained a charging order over the thief’s interest in that property. We registered the charging order with the Land Registry to ensure that the property could not be sold without our client’s consent.
The thief was forced to sell the property to enable him to pay the compensation order. The charging order took precedence over the compensation order because we had registered it against the bookseller’s interest in the property.
We advised our client not to give his consent to the removal of the charging order until he received payment of the sums due to him. He took our advice and has been paid in full!
For more information or for answers to your questions, please contact Rebecca Turnbull-Simpson. Rebecca is based in our Brighton office and can be contacted on 01273 323231 or via email.
back | home | contact us | legal stuff