Courtroom drachma: mock trial tackles the mystery of stolen Greek treasure

Almost hidden within the Victorian gothic grandeur of Oxford town hall is an old courtroom that, with its oak panels and red leather benches, looks like the kind of place that might house a trial in an episode of Midsomer Murders.

On a sweltering Thursday last week, it did host a trial that was filmed, but this was a mock trial rather than a TV drama, and the cameras belonged to a Danish documentary crew.

Joseph Duveen, a senior curator of Greek and Roman antiquities at the Cornish Museum, was on trial for handling stolen goods, contrary to section 22(1) of the Theft Act of 1968. The prosecution’s case was that he used his position to remove thousands of uncatalogued Greco-Roman objects from his department and sell them on eBay.

Duveen, like the Cornish Museum, is an invention, but some readers may feel that his case rings a bell. Swap the word “Cornish” for “British” and suddenly the artefacts that were reported missing from the Greek and Roman department of the British Museum two years ago come speedily to mind.

In that case, which led to the resignation of the museum’s director and deputy director, eBay also featured as the platform on which the missing objects were sold. Suspicion fell on the former head of the Greek and Roman department, Peter Higgs, who was sacked for gross misconduct.

The man behind the mock or “moot” trial is Roger Michel, a former assistant district attorney in Connecticut who is now executive director of the Institute for Digital Archaeology. The IDA is based in Oxford and was set up by Michel to promote the use of modern technology to study and conserve ancient treasures.

Earlier in the summer, Michel wrote to me: “I think our moot will be a very authentic dry run for an actual trial down the road.” When I ask him why he decided to set up the trial, he says: “I guess the simple answer is the British Museum case, which is the second time in recent memory when major public collections have apparently lost a significant number of items to what seems like theft.”

The first occasion he’s referring to concerned biblical papyrus fragments that were housed at the Sackler Library in Oxford and allegedly sold to the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. Suspected in that case was Dirk Obbink, an associate classics professor at the university, who was arrested. Obbink has denied any wrongdoing.

That was five years ago and, as with the British Museum thefts, no charges have yet been made.

Yet before the mock trial begins Michel makes a statement emphasising that this moot should not be confused with the British Museum case that inspired it. They are completely different, he says, with different characters, circumstances and evidence.

He is wearing a wig and a gown as he makes this statement, looking every inch a British prosecuting counsel. The mock judge, also done up in high court finery, is Michael Beloff, a distinguished KC who used to serve as a senior appeal judge. How did he get involved in this particular drama?

“He forced me,” he says, pointing to Michel. “He said it was my big chance to be a television star.”

The Danish documentary crew are here to film because Ittai Gradel, the Danish antiquities dealer who uncovered the British Museum thefts, is a spectator.

With everyone appropriately cloaked and wigged and the documentary crew in position, we’re ready. Except several jurors haven’t turned up. As real jury trials are under threat, it’s not exactly a vote of confidence in the form.

Liz Sawyer, a classicist who is retraining as a barrister and is acting as defence counsel, tells me that unless I volunteer to join the jury, the whole event is at risk of collapsing. But I hold firm in my position as a neutral observer, explaining that a man from the Telegraph is already on the jury and one journalist is more than enough. A woman who writes for the Spectator is recruited and we’re off.

Beloff is a reserved but firm presence, gently chiding Michel when he lapses into American legalisms. The big surprise, however, is that Michel, in a departure from his voluble out-of-court character, speaks so quietly that I’d be surprised if the jury hears half of what he has to say. I’d imagined a cross between Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird and Lt Daniel Kaffee, at the end of A Few Good Men. But Michel is more like Archie Leach in A Fish Called Wanda.

By contrast, Sawyer seems as though she’s studied key episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey to come up with an impressively clear and persuasive manner that is also – a big advantage, this – audible. It’s no surprise, therefore, that after a number of witnesses have given evidence, the jury reaches a necessarily hasty verdict of not guilty.

No one is more relieved than the mock prosecutor, Michel. It was the verdict he “had hoped for”. In his estimation, he explains, it was a very difficult case to win (especially speaking at that hushed volume) so he’s pleased that the verdict matched his expectation. But h e’s also content with the outcome because, due to all the speculation about the case that inspired the mock trial, “some people would have taken this as a pre-judgment about how [any potential future case] should be decided, and that was the last thing we wanted”.

So what have we learned? Art thefts are hard to prosecute. They tend, says Michel, to make for expensive court cases, due to expert witnesses and the contestable nature of provenance. “We’re not dealing with a crime of violence,” he says, and perhaps British criminal justice prefers to allocate its resources elsewhere. Grade, meanwhile, is convinced the British Museum case will come to court. “But I just don’t know if any of us will be alive when it does.”