Man Jailed For 3 Years For Stealing Rare World Map, Refuses To Reveal Its Location

The judge said he had misled the court, police and museum about the map's location and had been given eight months to return it.

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• A 70-year-old man was jailed for three years for cutting a rare 17th-century map.
• The stolen map, one of three in the world, remains missing from the National Maritime Museum.
• Melvin West pleaded guilty to theft, criminal damage, and possession of a blade.

How will police attempt to locate the missing restorer?

A 70-year-old man has been sentenced to three years in prison for cutting a rare 17th-century world map from a valuable atlas at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London. The stolen map, which is one of only three of its kind in the world, remains missing, according to The Daily Mail.

Melvin West used a Stanley knife to remove the map from the atlas. He had earlier pleaded guilty to theft, criminal damage and possession of a bladed article at Bromley Magistrates' Court in May.

Woolwich Crown Court heard that West visited The Caird Library at the National Maritime Museum on December 19 and 20, 2024, and February 25, 2025. 

On February 26, he cut one of the 12 maps from the atlas when he was left alone.

According to the Daily Mail, the museum staff later found the discarded blade. DNA evidence linked it to West, who was also identified on CCTV as the last person left alone in the Reading Room.

The stolen map shows the double-hemisphere world map Nova Orbis by Dutch cartographer Frederick de Wit. 

Judge Charlotte Welsh said West had repeatedly failed to explain where the map was or return it after his arrest on March 4, 2025. 

The court had previously postponed a hearing in June to give him time to recover from double heart bypass surgery and return the map, but he failed to do so.

West's defence barrister, Jessica Flain, told the court that he was ashamed of his actions and understood that he had done wrong. She said he had been under serious financial pressure because his pension credit did not cover his basic living costs.

Flain also said West had partly paid someone to restore the map, but that person was refusing to return it until the full payment was made. A friend had offered to pay the remaining amount if sentencing was delayed for seven days.

However, Judge Welsh rejected the request. She said West had previously claimed that he could return the map within seven days and later said it was with a friend, but neither promise had been fulfilled.

The judge said he had misled the court, police and museum about the map's location and had been given eight months to return it.

West was sentenced to three years in prison for criminal damage, with concurrent sentences of 16 months for theft and six months for possession of a blade.

The court heard that West had 27 convictions for 107 offences in the UK. He had also been sentenced by courts in Hungary in 2011 for burglary and in France in 2013 for theft. The judge described him as a career criminal and said the damage to the atlas was an international loss.

Judge Welsh said offences of this kind required immediate imprisonment to discourage others from committing similar crimes.

The National Maritime Museum described the map as a symbolic work of art and said the damage went far beyond its financial value. In a statement to the court, the museum said the loss of the atlas's central map affected its historical and bibliographical importance.

Detective Constable Sophie Hayes, from the Metropolitan Police's art and antiques unit, urged anyone with information about the map's whereabouts to come forward.

She said The Caird Library was an internationally important resource used by scholars around the world and that such thefts meant the thieves were the only people who benefited from these valuable artefacts.

Frederick de Wit was a master of Dutch Golden Age cartography. He produced the atlas in 1684, and only two other examples are held in Utrecht and Vienna. The court heard that digital copies of the work are incomplete and that the original has been permanently damaged.

Got a follow‑up question on this article? Go on

• How do reading rooms usually protect rare books from theft?
• What happens to stolen historical maps on the black market?
• Why are single pages from ancient atlases so highly valued?

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