With robberies of cultural objects on the rise, Tim Moore explores how increased digital access has made historic premises more vulnerable and how museum staff are fighting back.
At 1.24am on the first Tuesday in May, Elie Hughes, the curator of Ely Museum, was roused by an automated alarm-response call to her mobile. Her home is close to the museum, but when she pulled up in the little staff car park moments later – and just before the police arrived – it was already too late.
‘A shuttered window had been forced open,’ she says. ‘I just hoped it was an opportunist break-in, and that when the alarm went off it had frightened them away.’ But that wasn’t the case.
The CCTV clip released by Cambridgeshire police in the days following shows precisely what happened. A camera in the gift shop captures two black-clad figures clambering in through a jemmied window. Both wear hooded anoraks; one holds a sledgehammer... Keep reading on The Telegraph.
At 1.24am on the first Tuesday in May, Elie Hughes, the curator of Ely Museum, was roused by an automated alarm-response call to her mobile. Her home is close to the museum, but when she pulled up in the little staff car park moments later – and just before the police arrived – it was already too late.
‘A shuttered window had been forced open,’ she says. ‘I just hoped it was an opportunist break-in, and that when the alarm went off it had frightened them away.’ But that wasn’t the case.
The CCTV clip released by Cambridgeshire police in the days following shows precisely what happened. A camera in the gift shop captures two black-clad figures clambering in through a jemmied window. Both wear hooded anoraks; one holds a sledgehammer... Keep reading on The Telegraph.