A serial art thief who used a Stanley knife to cut a seventeenth century world map from a valuable atlas has been jailed for three years.
Father-of-two Melvin West, 70, previously pleaded guilty at Bromley Magistrates' Court in May to theft, criminal damage and possession of a bladed article.
The stolen map, depicting Dutch cartographer Frederick de Wit's double hemisphere 100 Nova Orbis, is one of only three in the world and remains missing.
Woolwich Crown Court heard West visited The Caird Library at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich on December 19 and 20, 2024 and on February 25, 2025.
He eventually sliced one of 12 maps out of the atlas when left alone on February 26.
The court heard staff found the discarded blade and DNA linked it to West, who was also identified on CCTV as the last person alone in the Reading Room.
The museum estimated the atlas's value at £50,000 – reduced to £20,000 after West's damage. The map alone is worth £6,000 on the black market.
It described the map as a 'symbolic work of art' and said the 'harm goes far beyond the monetary value', revealing they have invested £6,000 in new CCTV cameras.
Father-of-two Melvin West, 70, previously plead guilty at Bromley Magistrates' Court in May to theft, criminal damage and possession of a bladed article
Woolwich Crown Court heard West visited The Caird Library at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich on December 19 and 20, 2024 and on February 25, 2025. He eventually sliced one of 12 maps out of the atlas when left alone on February 26
The stolen map, depicting Dutch cartographer Frederick de Wit's double hemisphere 100 Nova Orbis, is one of only three in the world and remains missing
Woolwich Crown Court Judge Charlotte Welsh said West had been 'evasive' about the map's whereabouts since his arrest on March 4, 2025.
He dangled the prospect of retrieving the map, obtaining at least two court adjournments and even asking for another chance today to retrieve it.
Defence barrister Jessica Flain told the court West had partially paid someone to restore the map, who was now refusing to return it until he was paid in full.
She said a friend of West would pay the remaining fees so the map could be taken to Charing Cross Police Station if sentencing could be adjourned for seven days.
She told the court: 'Mr West is ashamed and embarrassed by the offences and recognises he was wrong.
'At the time he was under serious financial pressure and his pension credit did not meet his basic living costs. His offending was financially motivated. It was a short-term pressured decision by an old man living in difficult circumstances.'
An earlier court hearing had been adjourned in June so West could recover from double heart bypass surgery and return the item, however he failed to do so.
Woolwich Crown Court Judge Charlotte Welsh refused the most recent application.
In footage from a police interview, West answered 'no comment' to the majority of questions put to him, including whether he had sold the map (pictured)
She told the court: 'In June, you told the court that you had access to it and could return it within seven days – you didn't do that.
'You told me, through counsel, in August that the map was with a friend and once you had recovered (from heart surgery) you would retrieve and return it.
'Again, that appears to have been a lie.
'You have led this court, the police and the museum a merry dance about the whereabouts of this item.
'You were charged in February – you have had eight months to return the map. Not even close to all of that time were you in hospital or recovering from your operation.'
In footage from a police interview, West answered 'no comment' to the majority of questions put to him, including whether he had sold the map.
The court heard West has 27 convictions for 107 offences in the UK.
He was described as a 'career criminal' by the judge, having also been sentenced by a Hungarian court in 2011 for burglary and by a French court in 2013 for theft.
The court heard he also had convictions under various identities.
West was sentenced to three years in prison for criminal damage, with concurrent sentences of 16 months for theft and six months for possession of a blade.
The court was told Wit's atlases are unique, the two digital copies of the work are incomplete and now the original is 'damaged forever'.
Judge Welsh said she would not suspend the sentence, describing the damage as an 'international loss' that 'cannot be understated'.
She told West: 'Offences of this nature call for an immediate sentence of imprisonment to deter other people from doing precisely what you have.'
In a victim impact statement, the museum said the loss of the centrepiece map of the atlas, which scholars from around the world travel to study, 'undermines its bibliographical integrity'.
The museum has spent thousands of pounds reviewing its security arrangements and has been left with the 'very real concern this could inspire copycat crimes targeting other items in the collection'.
Detective Constable Sophie Hayes, of the Met Police's art and antiques unit, appealed to those who had knowledge of the map's whereabouts to come forward.
She said after sentencing: 'The Caird Library is an internationally important resource, used by scholars the world over. Thefts like this mean the only people who profit from these beautiful artefacts are the thieves themselves.'
Frederick de Wit is regarded as a master of the 'Dutch Golden Age' of cartography, producing the atlas in 1684 with only two other examples in Utrecht and Vienna.