More than a million-and-a-half-pounds worth of Chinese jade and ivory antiques were stolen from the home of an elderly widow by her former gardener and his son, a jury has been told.
Des Pickersgill was a friend and neighbour of the woman and regularly called at her property with a bottle of wine for the pair of them to share, it was claimed.
She had suffered a stroke and was becoming increasingly frail and forgetful and was looked after round the clock by carers.
Luton crown court was told her Bedfordshire home was filled with paintings – including a Picasso – books and heirlooms.
But, unknown to the widow – now aged 96 – Mr Pickersgill, it’s claimed, was secretly helping himself to items from her Jade and ivory collections of ornaments and artefacts that had been built up over years and which filled her home in unlocked display cabinets.
On Monday, June 14, 2021, the jury heard when a police officer first questioned Mr Pickersgill snr in 2018, he is alleged to have said how, on one occasion when he was having a drink with her, the TV set wasn’t working and he called out his son Gary to fix it.
He said he remembered her telling his son: “I can’t pay you Gary, I don’t hold a kitty in the house, you will have to have this ornament. It was four inches across, a dish. (She said) take that as a gift. Behind her was a cabinet of Jade.”
Mr Pickersgill is said to have told the officer that when Gary then fixed the door of the cabinet with some ‘Gorilla Glue‘ she referred again to the dish, saying to his son: “That will pay you for what you have done today, because I have got no cash.
Mr Pickersgill, who is aged 82 and from Bedford and his son Gary Pickersgill, 42, from Skegness in Lincolnshire are alleged to have opened accounts with Bonhams Auction House in London to pieces of jade and ivory from the pensioner’s collection, making out they had the authority to do so.
On Tuesday, June 15, the investigating officer told the trial of a prepared statement Gary Pickersgill made after his arrest in which he said he and his family had known the widow for years and how he would do odd jobs for her
Former Detective constable Dave Brecknock said Mr Pickersgill jnr told how on one occasion the widow gave him a box containing pieces of what he thought were marble and pieces of ivory as payment for some work he had done for her prior to 2011 and which he had put in his loft.
The officer said Mr Pickersgill claimed that years later after watching a TV programme he had realised what the woman had given him was jade and and as a result he had contacted Bonhams Auction House.
One such item that was sold by Gary Pickersgill, said prosecutor Ian Hope, was an apple green jade bowl.
He told the court: “It went for a cool million pounds.”
The jury was told a pale green jade teapot sold for around five million Hong Kong dollars in 2015, which he said was worth around half-a-million pounds.
Over the years between November 2011 and May of 2017 dozens of jade and ivory antiques, along with porcelain ornaments and other valuable pieces, are alleged to have been taken from the house in the village near Bedford.
As a result, say the prosecution, Gary Pickersgill and his wife Sarah went from being on the verge of eviction from their rented home in Bedford, to purchasing a luxury home with a swimming pool and paddocks in Spalding, Lincs and then a hotel in Skegness, said the prosecutor.
Mr Hope told the court when he opened the case to the jury: “This case concerns the theft and fraud behind the sale of high value jade and ivory antiques taken from the home of an elderly widow.
“The crown say her collection was systematically raided by Des Pickersgill and his son Gary.”
The thefts are alleged to have come to light following a burglary at the woman’s home on the night of September 20 2017
Thieves, who have never been caught, broke in through a stable door.
The widow who was then in her early 90s, was in bed and her carers had popped out. In the raid, items of jade and ivory were taken from the display cabinets.
Bedfordshire Police began an investigation and so too did her insurance company, who appointed a fine arts and antiques valuer to see what had been taken and what it was worth.
Mary Griffith-Thompson decided to go to the archives auction houses, Sotherby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams to find similar pieces so that she could work out current replacement values.
Working from photos of the widow’s cherished items she made an startling discovery when she discovered an 18th or 19th century jade antique teapot thought to have been stolen in the raid, had been sold two years earlier in 2015 through Bonhams for more than half a million pounds
“Because it was the same teapot, she had stumbled on something of a mystery because she was investigating a burglary in 2017 and she discovered the teapot had been sold years before the burglary took place in 2017,” said the prosecutor.
He said Mary Griffith-Thompson also noticed there were few provenance details in the archive concerning the teapot which just said it was from an “English Private Collection.”
That was unusual, he said, since more information about the piece would only have serve to increase its value.
As a result of her discovery, said the prosecutor, the expert compared other photos taken of Mrs Marx’s jade and ivory collection with photos from Bonhams archive of pieces they had sold over the years.
She concluded that some of the missing items pictured in the display cabinets at the widow’s home had been sold at auction by Bonhams in the years before the 2017 burglary.
The jury was told that items sold included jade and ivory figures, animals, mythical creatures, oriental antiques, bowls, vases, carvings, a spittoon worth six figures, a jade teapot that went for five million Hong Kong dollars and the apple green jade bowl for a million pounds.
Mr Hope said the expert passed her findings on to Bedfordshire Police and enquiries established the items had been sold through accounts with Bonhams opened in the names of Des Pickersgill and his son, Gary.
Mr Hope said it wasn’t the prosecution’s case that any of the defendants were responsible for the 2017 burglary, but he said it had revealed that someone had been taking antiques for years which had been sold in the name of Des Pickersgill and his son.
Proceeds from sales, said the prosecutor, had been made to the father in the form of cheques from Bonhams, while his son is said to have received bank transfers to a joint account in his name and his wife’s.
The jury were told that having been on the verge of being evicted from a rented property in Bedford, Gary Pickersgill and his wife Sarah were able to buy a luxury house with a swimming pool, paddocks and one and a half acres of grounds in Spalding, Lincs for just over £410,000 in March 2014, which was mortgage free.
That house was sold in September 2017 and they used the proceeds to buy a hotel in Skegness, spending £100,000 on renovations, said Mr Hope.
The jury was told that in 2018 Gary Pickersgill enlisted the help of friends Kevin Wigmore and his wife Tracey from Lincolnshire to open an account at Bonhams and, through it, three items of jade were sold at auction for a total of more than £63,000.
In June of that year police questioned Des Pickersgill.
He told detectives he had known her for around 30 years and had worked for her and her late partner as a gardener.
Describing her as “very generous” he said she sometimes gave him items from her collection which he had later had valued and sold.
He said his own father had built up a collection of Jade and his son Gary had sold a lot of it at Bonhams.
Gary Pickersgill was also questioned by officers and said he had carried out odd jobs for the widow over the years and he told how she had once given him a box of items from her home as a gift.
Later he said, thinking they might be valuable, he had sold them.
His wife Sarah Pickersgill is said to have told police she knew nothing about the sale of antiques and she said how, some years before, she and her landscape gardener husband had been on the verge of being evicted from their rented property in Bedford.
She said they had later bought a home for £410,000 in Spalding and then a hotel in Skegness and she said she didn’t know where the money had come from and had never questioned him about their “financial turnaround.”
The court was told victim and her first husband had built up the collection of Chinese Jade and Ivory antiques.
Following his death in 1976, the collection – for the purposes of probate – had been valued at £60,000. In the 1980s it was valued again at £160,000
In 1978 she had met another man while on a cruise and they eventually moved in together at the former farmhouse.
He died in 2000 and, following his death, she sold her own “unique and rare collection of books” for over £4million at Christie’s.
Her farmer grandson told the court she had suffered a stroke in 2011 and her health had then declined.
He said while she had been in hospital recovering, he had photographed much of her collection of Jade and Ivory because “of the way the world is and crime, and the house being empty.”
The court heard that following the burglary in 2017 all valuable property has been removed from the house and was now kept in secure storage.
Giving evidence, Mary Griffith-Thompson – who is a fine arts and antique valuer – said she had been instructed for insurance purposes to help with the investigation into the theft of the Chinese jade items from the woman’s home.
She said she had two photos of two display cabinets with Jade pieces inside that had been taken in 2011 and she had been asked to get descriptive details of what had been taken, historic values of the items and ascertain present day values.
In a visit to the house after the burglary, she said she saw the two cabinets and the marks on the shelves where pieces, including a jade teapot, had previously stood.
The expert then told the jury she had visited the archives of auction houses to look for examples of what appeared to have been taken in the burglary.
Mr Hope asked her: “Did anything catch your eye?”
She replied: “Yes, a teapot.”
Continuing her evidence, she told the jury the item was in the Bonhams archive as having been sold on June 4, 2015.
She said the piece was described as a “Magnificent very pale green jade teapot, which sold for five million, nine hundred and twenty thousand Hong Kong dollars which, at the time, was just shy of £580,000.”
She said she closely studied the photo of the teapot in the archive, looking at the handle, the body and spout and then noticed there was a tiny flaw in the jade.
“There was a flaw in the jade that matched a flaw that was visible on the teapot in the cabinet. Because Jade is a natural substance, the chances of it occurring in the same place was remote,” she said.
Mary Griffith-Thompson then told the jury the provenance details given in the archive for the teapot were unusual because they were very brief, describing it as “Private English Collection.”
She said for a such “an important, rare and valuable” piece she would have expected there to be much more detail about it concerning the collection it had come from and if it had ever been in a museum.
“The provenance with Chinese fine art adds to the value; provenance is kudos so it’s worth money,” she said.
Fuller details would add to the sale price for the vendor and increase the percentage of the “hammer price” for the auction house, she said.
She said she was able to compare other items pictured in the display cabinets and which it had been assumed to have gone missing in the break in, with other pieces shown in the Bonhams archive.
They too like the teapot had unusually brief provenance details and had been sold at Bonhams before September 2017 burglary
They included a spittoon sold in November 2014 for £158,000 and a vase and cover sold before the burglary for £20,000.
At Luton Crown Court Des Pickersgill, 82, now of Clyde Crescent, Bedford, and Gary Pickersgill, 42, of Saxby Avenue, Skegness, plead not guilty to the theft of jade and ivory artefacts from the home of the old lady between November 2011 and May of 2018.
The pair, along with Kevin Wigmore, 47, and his wife Tracey Wigmore, 49, of Sapphire Close, Orby near Skegness, plead not guilty to fraud after it’s alleged they made representations to Bonhams Auction House between November 2011 and May 2019 that they had authority to sell the jade and ivory items on behalf of the woman
Des Pickersgill, Gary Pickersgill and Sarah Pickersgill, 40, also from Saxby Avenue, Skegness, plead not guilty to converting criminal property by selling the items to the auction house.
Gary Pickersgill, Kevin Wigmore and Tracey Wigmore plead not guilty to converting criminal property by selling jade and ivory antiques to Bonhams.
Case proceeding
