Police have recovered fourteen items of significant cultural and historic value worth at total of £5 million following a regional operation that took place on Thursday 22nd September 2011.
The items, which were recovered from “lock-ups” at two residential premises in South and West Yorkshire, are believed to be those previously reported as stolen from Newby Hall and Sion Hill in North Yorkshire and Firle Place in Sussex.
Of significant value is one Chippendale table, thought to have been made especially for Newby Hall in Ripon in 1775 but was stolen from the stately home in June 2009. The George III rosewood table is described as having worldwide importance.
Also recovered was a pair of Louis XVI ormolu and Sevres bleu vases, with an insurance value of £950,000. These were taken from Firle Place in July 2009 along with a Meissen statue, The Indiscreet Harlequin (circa 1743) and a rare Sèvres Hollandois Nouveau vase of 1761; valued at £180,000 each. Both pieces are amongst those recovered from the Firle Place break-in, which, together with the vases, places the total value of the Firle Place porcelain collection somewhere in the region of £1.3 million.
Another of the recovered antiques is an embellished bracket clock made by Daniel Delander of London in around 1710. It is believed to be the same clock that was reported as stolen from Sion Hill Hall in Northallerton in February 2009.
The Yorkshire and Humber Regional Intelligence and Special Operations Units received the initial intelligence which was then worked up further following a lengthy period of surveillance until it was possible to then identify a number of suspects connected to the thefts and whereabouts of the items.
The resulting raid on two residential premises took place throughout the day on Thursday 22nd September 2011 and into the early hours of Friday 23rd. It marked the culmination of a year-long investigation carried out by the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit who received significant support from West Yorkshire Police and officers from the Regional Roads Crime Team, North Yorkshire Police and South Yorkshire Police.
Over 30 officers worked tirelessly on the operation throughout and have since made two arrests: the first, a 68 year old male from Tankersley, South Yorkshire; the second, a 44 year old male from Middleton, Leeds, West Yorkshire. Both men are being questioned while the recovered items continue to be formerly identified by experts.
Speaking of the case, Det Supt Steve Waite, Head of Regional Intelligence said:
“This is an absolutely fantastic case and a great result for both the officers involved and the stately homes that have been affected by these thefts. We are so pleased and proud to have recovered these high value antiques which have been described as true pieces of British heritage.
“We will now begin the formal process of identification and will eventually be in a position to reunite the pieces with their owners. For now, they will remain under lock and key in a controlled environment so as to preserve them.
“Only a couple of items have suffered minor damage in the ordeal but this just goes to show that those involved in the thefts were not in it for their love of antiques. In fact, recent trends indicate that these types of high-value items are actually being used by organised crime groups as currency or collateral in relation to serious criminality, often involving drugs.”
