Two Lowry paintings taken from a doctor, 1996

On 7 November 1996, two antique dealers from Sussex, Michael Openshaw and Robert Barrett, took two paintings by L. S. Lowry from the lounge wall of Dr Percy Thompson-Hancock in London. The Argus gives that date, which comes from the charge read to the jury. Lowry was a British painter who died in 1976. The two oils were Children on a Promenade and A Family of Three. The prosecution said they had hung in the doctor’s lounge for about 30 years.

Dr Thompson-Hancock was a retired cancer specialist and former Harley Street doctor. The press reported him as 94 at the time of the trial, and partially blind. He told the court that the two men had visited his home over about five years and that he had sold them a number of items. The paintings, he said, were never for sale. He meant to leave them to his two daughters, and he told the court he did not really trust the dealers. This is his evidence as the BBC and The Independent report it.

The men removed the canvases despite his protests. According to the trial evidence, they left 10,400 pounds in cash for Children on a Promenade and sent 6,000 pounds a few days later for A Family of Three. That makes 16,400 pounds in all. The prosecutor, Duncan Atkinson, said that at first glance a sale had taken place, but that no valid sale had. Barrett told police he had bought the paintings properly and thought about 16,000 pounds was a fair value. Openshaw told police that no one in the family had complained.

The men then had the paintings sold at auction. The court heard that Bonhams sold them for 78,000 pounds in total. No source read gives the sale date or the lot numbers, or says whether that figure includes the buyer’s premium. The family tried to get the paintings back and did not know of the sale. About eight months after the theft, the two works were on sale at a gallery in Bond Street, London, at 215,000 pounds. The gallery is not named, and the reports do not say whether that price covered both works. The doctor’s granddaughter saw the paintings at a Lowry exhibition in the gallery and called the police.

The trial lasted five days at Southwark Crown Court, from about 3 August 1998. The defence said the doctor’s relatives were greedy and had victimised the dealers once they learned what the paintings were worth. The jury rejected this. It convicted both men of two counts of theft. On 7 August 1998, Judge David Elfer QC sentenced each man to four years in prison. He called their conduct “despicable” and “a determined crusade” to get the doctor’s best pieces, and he treated the two as equal partners.

The BBC reported that Openshaw had one earlier conviction. Barrett had appeared in court over 28 years, including the theft of antique furniture worth 9,000 pounds from a 90-year-old man. Police believed the pair had targeted elderly people in southern England for years. No appeal has been reported.

At the sentencing the BBC wrote that it “now seems likely” the paintings would go back to the doctor and his wife. No return has been reported, and no report says where the two works are now.