‘Playboy’ dealer jailed over stolen Shakespeare first folio

AN unemployed antiques dealer with a taste for the high life was jailed for eight years after he was convicted of handling a stolen copy of a rare first collection of Shakespeare’s plays.

Raymond Scott, 53, who drove a yellow Ferrari and posed as an international playboy despite having huge debts, walked into one of the world’s leading Shakespeare research centres with the 17th century book.

Scott was arrested after presenting the badly damaged folio to staff at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC and asking for it to be verified as genuine. He claimed to have discovered the book in Cuba. Staff recognised it and called the police, the British Embassy and the FBI.

Regarded as one of the most important printed works in the English language, fewer than 250 copies of the collection survive. Independent experts said the book, even in its damaged state, was worth about £1 million (€1.2m).

Last month a jury at Newcastle Crown Court found Scott guilty of handling stolen goods and removing stolen property from Britain. However, he was cleared of stealing the book from Durham University in 1988.

Judge Richard Lowden said: “You are to some extent a fantasist and have to some degree a personality disorder and you have been an alcoholic.

“It is clear that from the (psychiatric) report you are not suffering from any mental disorder.”

Passing sentence, the judge branded the damage to the First Folio as “cultural vandalisation” and described it as a “quintessentially English treasure”.

He said Scott had either deliberately damaged the book himself or was party to its damage and attempted to benefit from it.

“It would be regarded by many as priceless but to you it was definitely at a very big price and you went tovery great lengths for that price,” Judge Lowden told Scott. “Your motivation was for financial gain.” The judge said the book had been kept out of the public eye for many years and had been “defaced to hide its true identity”.

The judge gave Scott a six-year prison term for handling stolen goods and two years’ imprisonment – to run consecutively – for removing stolen property from Britain.

Scott also admitted theft of two paintings, worth around £1,000, from Fenwicks department store in Newcastle in October 2008.

He received two six-month prison sentences to run concurrent to the eight years.

The court heard that Scott had 25 previous convictions dating back to 1977, mainly for dishonesty. He was unemployed, living off benefits and until recently had been living with his elderly mother.

Toby Hedworth, defending, said Scott had been suffering from a long-standing alcohol addiction and since his remand in custody had not been drinking.

Experts at the institution discovered the artefact was an incredibly rare and unique example of the folio which had gone missing in a raid at Durham University in December 1998.

The book was taken from a secured glass cabinet in an exhibition of ancient English literature at the university’s Palace Green Library.