'Tome raider' book thief faces jail

A former Cambridge student who plundered rare book collections worth up to £1.1 million from libraries faces a lengthy jail term.

William Jacques, 32, nicknamed the "Tome Raider" by police, took hundreds of first edition books and sold them at auction houses in the UK.

More than a year ago the former chartered accountant was convicted by a jury of 19 counts of theft from the British Library, the Cambridge University Library and the London Library dating from October 1996 to May 1999.

But the case could not be published until today because he faced further similar charges. Yesterday he pleaded guilty to two counts of theft and the remaining 12 were not proceeded with. In total he stole 412 rare antiquarian books making the haul one of the biggest of its kind in British legal history.

The literary works include "extremely rare" first editions of Principia Mathematica by Sir Isaac Newton, books written by Galileo, and The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - Margaret Thatcher's favourite economist.

Some have been returned to the libraries but hundreds of the books have never been traced. The collections were recovered from auction houses in Britain and Germany, and bank safe deposit boxes around the UK.

Jacques, a former student at Jesus College in Cambridge, left in 1990 with an economics degree. Detective Constable Paul Howitt, the officer in charge of the investigation, said: "I'm very, very pleased he has pleaded guilty and saved the taxpayer a lot of money and prevented a costly second trial."

Opening the case against Jacques at his trial in February last year prosecutor Karim Khalil told jurors at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court: "He is a professional thief with financial greed underlying all that he did and he is now hiding behind the cloak of educated respectability.

"We are not dealing with last year's law book. We are going back hundreds of years with some of them. They are valuable and he knew that."

The scam came to light in February 1999 when a customer bought an obscure book called Pure Logic And Quality by William Jevons, for £120 at Bloomsbury Book Auctions in London. After turning down £600 for it the customer took it to a specialist in economics books, Pickering & Chapman.

The managing director became suspicious as the book had been tampered with. Holes in the book, which had been patched up with paper, provided tell-tale signs that the book had come from the London Library.

The book had come from a consignment lodged at the saleroom by Jacques. When the auction house asked Jacques where he got it, he said he had bought it at Portobello Market "from a scruffy, middle-aged man who he couldn't identify and hadn't seen since" but Jacques could not provide receipts.

He was convicted on 1 March last year after the jury reached majority 10-1 verdicts against him.

Jacques, of west London, also now faces a huge prosecution clawback to compensate the owners.

Judge Derek Inman told him he faces a lengthy jail term when he passes sentence this week.