Father and son guilty of £1.7m antiques theft from Bedford widow

Gary Pickersgill and his father Des Pickersgill said the elderly woman had given them the items

A father and son have been found guilty of stealing antiques worth about £1.7m from a wealthy widow.

Des, 83, and Gary Pickersgill, 42, sold items including Chinese jade and ivory ornaments, taken from the 96-year-old woman's home near Bedford.

Luton Crown Court heard they were taken from an unlocked cabinet between November 2011 and May 2018.

Des Pickersgill said the items had been given to him, but the pair were found guilty of theft on Monday.

Des Pickersgill had worked for the woman, his neighbour, looking after her garden, bringing her shopping and, with his son, carrying out odd jobs in the house after she had a stroke.

The woman had built up a collection of valuable paintings and antiques, but the Pickersgills were helping themselves to some items and selling them on, the court heard.

A jade teapot was among items stolen by the father and son

Over seven years, they stole almost 50 items, including jade and ivory figures and oriental antiques.

They opened accounts with Bonhams auction house in London and passed the antiques off as their own, the jury was told.

One item sold by Gary Pickersgill was an apple green jade bowl which "went for a cool million pounds", prosecutor Ian Hope said.

Mr Hope told the jury the woman's collection was "systematically raided" by the pair.

A jade brush-washer was also part of the woman's collection, the court heard

Their thefts came to light during an investigation into a burglary at the woman's house in 2017.

The perpetrators of that have never been caught.

However, an insurance investigator visited auction houses with photographs of some of the widow's antiques to find similar pieces so she could work out replacement values.

She discovered a jade antique teapot thought to have been stolen in the raid had, in fact, been sold two years earlier in 2015 through Bonhams for more than £500,000.

She then found other items belonging to the woman had been sold through the auction house before the 2017 break-in.

The woman's grandson photographed her collection in 2011

The court heard that in 2018 Gary Pickersgill enlisted the help of friends Kevin Wigmore and his wife Tracy, from Lincolnshire, to open an account at Bonhams and sell further jade items.

Des Pickersgill, now of Clyde Crescent, Bedford, and Gary Pickersgill, of Saxby Avenue, Skegness, were both convicted of the theft of jade and ivory artefacts.

The pair, along with Wigmore, 47, of Sapphire Close, Orby, near Skegness, were convicted of fraud by making false representations to the auction house.

Des Pickersgill, Gary Pickersgill and his wife Sarah Pickersgill, 40; Kevin Wigmore and Tracy Wigmore were found guilty of converting criminal property

They will be sentenced at a later date.