A judge has ordered a former British Museum curator who claims he stole hundreds of artefacts from the museum to return the jewels and jewelery in his collection.
According to court documents, the museum claims that former curator Peter Higgs, who once headed the museum's Greco-Roman antiquities department, stole or damaged more than 1,800 artifacts from its collection. He claims to have sold 100 items on eBay.
Officials are also asking Higgs to explain the whereabouts of other artifacts the former caretaker allegedly sold online. Court documents say Higgs disputes the charges against him.
At a High Court hearing in London, Judge Heather Williams ordered Mr Higgs to return any items within four weeks. Judge Williams also ordered online payment company PayPal to release data about Mr Higgs' eBay account, including his transaction history.
The museum's missing items include carved gemstones and jewelry, some of which are thousands of years old.
Mr. Higgs and his family did not respond to emails or social media messages from the Times on Tuesday. Lawyers for the museum said in court documents that the curator was “suffering from severe mental strain” and was “unable to respond effectively to the proceedings.”
Only about 350 of the missing artifacts have been recovered since the museum announced the theft in August.
London police are investigating, but a police spokesperson said in an email Wednesday that no one has been charged in connection with the missing artifacts.
The museum said in court documents that Higgs “abused his position of trust within the museum” between 2009 and 2018 to remove artifacts, including items not fully cataloged by the museum. He said there was “evidence”. Higgs then sold many of them on eBay to at least 45 different buyers, the museum said. Those buyers are said to include people from the United States and Denmark.
In its filing, the museum also accuses a former curator of trying to cover up the theft by falsifying the museum's digital catalog, including changing descriptions of the missing items.
British newspapers had long reported that Higgs was the curator at the center of the scandal, but Tuesday's hearing was the first time the museum had revealed his name.
When the museum fired Higgs in July for gross misconduct, he had worked there for more than 30 years. In 2021, the museum promoted Higgs to acting curator of the Greek and Roman Division. The position is a key one, overseeing some of the museum's most precious artifacts, including the disputed Parthenon marbles.
Mr Higgs has curated some blockbuster exhibitions at the British Museum, including a 2016 exhibition on the history of Sicily. Another of his exhibitions, “Ancient Greeks: Athlete Warriors and Heroes,'' toured Australia and China.
The museum's lawyers are trying to force the court to reveal details about the items the museum claims Higgs stole because they fear they could soon become “unrecoverable.” He said it was for the sake of it.
“As long as the items remain in circulation in large quantities, and in some cases are sold and resold across borders, recovering stolen items becomes even more difficult,” the museum's lawyer said in court. “The sooner the museum contacts other buyers, the more likely it is that further property will be recovered,” he added.