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Payback time for trio in fake Egyptian statue con
An elderly couple and their son who duped a local council-owned museum into paying £440,000 for a fake Egyptian statuette were yesterday ordered to pay most of it back.
Bolton Museum bought the 20-inch Princess Amarna in good faith after it was authenticated as 3,300 years old by the Egyptology department at Christie's and the British Museum.
In fact the figurine was "knocked up" by master forger Shaun Greenhalgh, 47, in his garden shed in Bolton in just three weeks. His parents George, 84, and Olive, 83, helped sell their son's numerous forgeries in which they made at least 850,000 over a 17-year period.
Judge William Morris ruled yesterday at Bolton Crown Court that the Greenhalghs should pay 363,707 to Bolton Council. He also ordered repayments of 37,975 to Sotheby's of London and 2,567 to the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds.
Shaun Greenhalgh was jailed for four years and eight months last November; his father was given a two-year suspended sentence, and his mother received a one-year suspended jail term.
Yesterday the couple's other son, George Greenhalgh junior, was given a six month suspended sentence in connection with the transfer of 10,000 from the sale of a fake artefact.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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