British Museum staff member sacked after treasures vanished named as senior curator
The British Museum staff member sacked after the disappearance of a number of artefacts has been named as Peter Higgs.
Mr Higgs, regarded as one of Britain’s top experts on Greek and Mediterranean artefacts, was the British Museum’s curator of Mediterranean cultures until earlier this year.
The 56-year-old had been with the museum for almost three decades.
Mr Higgs (left) was involved in a project in 2021 to return a statue to Libya
Mr Higgs’ son denied his father had done anything wrong.
“He’s not happy about it at all,” Greg Higgs told The Times.
“He’s lost his job and his reputation and I don’t think it was fair. It couldn’t have been [him]. I don’t think there is even anything missing as far as I’m aware.”
The British Museum said items that were found to be “missing, stolen or damaged” included “gold jewellery and gems of semi-precious stones and glass dating from the 15th Century BC to the 19th Century AD”.
The majority were “small pieces kept in a storeroom belonging to one of the museum’s collections”.
They were mainly used for academic and research work and none had recently been on public display.
British Museum officials began investigating after several artefacts were offered for sale on eBay.
The museum said it will be taking legal action and the Metropolitan Police’s economic and crime command is investigating.
During his career, Mr Higgs had written books from his work at the museum, including co-authoring a book about the ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII.
The book accompanied a major exhibition about the famous ruler at the British Museum in 2001, which explored how she was depicted during her own era, in works ranging from coins to life-size sculptures.
Mr Higgs had been with the museum for almost 30 years. (Pictured at the opening of his Cleopatra exhibition in 2001).
Another book published last year focused on the fragments of decorative architecture – known as Metopes – recovered from the Temple of Apollo at Bassai.
Mr Higgs also co-authored a 2016 book about the ancient Sicilian culture, which accompanied an exhibition at the museum at the time.
In 2021, he was also involved in curating a travelling exhibition about the heroes, warriors and athletes of Ancient Greece, bringing together almost 180 artefacts, including a section of a frieze that wrapped around the tomb of King Mausolus.
The exhibition, from the British Museum, went to museums in Australia and New Zealand.
In the same year, Mr Higgs was involved in a project to return a rare 2,000-year-old marble statue, believed to be of the Greek goddess Persephone, to Libya.
The British Museum said it will be taking legal action
The statue, believed to have come from the ancient Libyan city of Cyrene, was seized by customs officials at Heathrow Airport in 2013.
It was likely stolen from a tomb in the cemetery during the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
On its return to Libya, he told The Guardian: “It is just lovely to be part of a story which has a happy ending.”
According to The Times, Mr Higgs, who lives in Hastings, East Sussex, went to school in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, before studying archaeology at the University of Liverpool.
In an interview with The Greek Herald last year, Mr Higgs said he used to visit the British Museum regularly as a child and was “fascinated by the large-scale sculptures”.
Asked why he particularly enjoyed studying Greek culture, he said: “There is the visual connection – the large temples, tombs and sculptures that have so inspired sculptors and architects over time.
“There are the great legends and tales of epic heroes, gods and goddesses which we have known since childhood and the great legacies of the Greek world – wonderfully profound stories turned into plays and then there is the Olympic Games – an early and lasting attempt to promote peace through shared pursuits.”
The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.
Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.
Read more: Thousands of jobs at risk as British Steel consults unions over closure
The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.
The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.
The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.
The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.
These steel workers could soon be out of work
However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.
Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.
However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.
They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.
The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.
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Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.
“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”
British Steel declined to comment.
UK
Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace branded ‘crude attempt to enrich himself’ as Chinese spy documents set to be released
Prince Andrew’s efforts to make money from his Pitch@Palace project have been branded as a “crude attempt to enrich himself” at the expense of “unsuspecting tech founders”, as new documents may shed more light on what he and his team have been attempting to sell.
Today is the deadline for documents to be released relating to Prince Andrew‘s former senior adviser Dominic Hampshire and his interactions with the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
In February, an immigration tribunal heard how the intelligence services had contacted Mr Hampshire about Mr Yang back in 2022. Mr Yang helped set up Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the duke’s scheme to help young entrepreneurs.
The alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo, has links with Prince Andrew
Yang Tengbo. Pic: Pitch@Palace
Judges banned Mr Yang from the UK, saying his association with a senior royal had made Prince Andrew “vulnerable” and posed a threat to national security. Mr Yang challenged that decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
Since that hearing, media organisations have applied for certain documents relating to the case and Mr Hampshire’s support for Mr Yang to be made public. SIAC agreed to release some information of public interest. It is hoped they may include more details on deals that he was trying to do on behalf of Prince Andrew.
So what do we know about potential deals for Pitch@Palace so far?
In February, Sky News confirmed that palace officials had a meeting last summer with tech funding company StartupBootcamp to discuss a potential tie-up between them and Prince Andrew relating to his Pitch@Palace project.
The palace wasn’t involved in the fine details of a deal but wanted guarantees to make sure it wouldn’t impact the Royal Family in the future. Sky News understands from one source that the price being discussed for Pitch was around £750,000 – there are, however, reports that a deal may have stalled.
Photos we found on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce website show an event held in Asia between StartupBootcamp and Innovate Global, believed to be an offshoot of Pitch.
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Who is alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo?
Documents, released in relation to the investigations into Mr Tengbo, have also shown how much the duke has always seen Pitch as a way of potentially making money. One document from 21 August 2021 clearly states “the duke needed money at the time, and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.
But Prince Andrew’s apparent intention to use Pitch to make money has led to concerns about whether he is unfairly using the contacts and information he gained when he was a working royal.
Norman Baker, former MP and author of books on royal finances, believes it is “a crude attempt to enrich himself” and goes against what the tech entrepreneurs thought they were signing up for.
Read more:
Who is Yang Tenbo?
Virginia Giuffre says she has days to live
Emails between Andrew and Epstein revealed
He told Sky News: “The data given by these business people was given on the basis it was an official operation and not something for Prince Andrew, and so in my view, Prince Andrew had no right legally or morally to take the data which has been collected, a huge amount of data, and sell it…
“And quite clearly if you’re going to sell it off to StartupBootcamp, that is not what people had in mind. The entrepreneurs who joined Pitch@Palace did not do so to enrich Prince Andrew,” he said.
Rich Wilson was one tech entrepreneur who was approached at the start of Pitch@Palace to sign up, but he stepped away when he spotted a clause in the contract saying they’d be entitled to 2% equity in any funding he secured.
He feels Prince Andrew is continuing to use those he made a show of supporting.
He said: “It makes me feel sick. I think it’s terrible – that he is continuing to exploit unsuspecting tech founders in this way. A lot of them, I’m quite grey and old in the tooth now, I saw it coming, but clearly most didn’t. And a lot of them were quite young.
“It’ll be their first venture and you’re learning on the trot, so to speak. So to take advantage of people in such a major way – that’s an awful, sickening thing to do.”
We approached StartupBootcamp who said they had no comment to make, and the Duke of York’s office did not respond.
With reports that a deal may have stalled, it could be a big setback for the duke – especially with questions still about how he’ll continue to pay for his home on the Windsor estate now that the King no longer gives him financial support.
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