Examination of Witnesses (Questions 154-159)
MR ANTHONY
BROWNE, MR
RICHARD AYDON,
MR JAMES
EDE AND
MR JOHNNY
VAN HAEFTEN
4 NOVEMBER 2003
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank
you very much indeed for coming to see us. We understand that
you have other preoccupations today and therefore we have somewhat
re-timed our session in order that you may do us justice and then
conduct your other essential activities. Mr Fabricant?
Q154 Michael Fabricant:
Thank you, Chairman. Good morning. Thank you for making it this
morning. Could you tell me how important it would be and how useful
it would be if there were a national database.
Mr Browne: We think
it is the most important practical step that can be taken to confront
the concern that this Committee has had and ministers have had
on the illicit market here in the United Kingdom, because it would
make it much harder for people to dispose of the products of their
crimes and it would, I think, act also as a deterrent to thieves
who at the moment think that chattels are a good target for crime.
I also think that it is important from a wider perspective, because
of the linkage that we often read about in terms of the people
who are caught for other crimes who are in possession of stolen
goods.
Q155 Michael Fabricant:
How do you imagine or envisage this database would work in an
ideal situation? Would it be a database to which you would subscribe
or would it be freely available on the internet?
Mr Browne: At the
moment, as I think you heard in the last session you had, there
is the Art Loss Register and other databases which members of
this federation use widely, and they are very effective and they
are very good. The problem which they suffer from is that the
people whom I represent go further than the large firms in London
and so on of which people have heard, to much smaller operations,
for whom, frankly, the burden of having to pay an amount of money
every time you want to search something is an obstacle. It is
actually at the fringes, if you like, of the market that things
are likely to leach into the market which then change hands several
times. One of the recommendations that we originally put to your
Committee, which was endorsed by the Illicit Trade Advisory Panel,
was that there should be a generally available database. It does
not need to contain confidential policy information and so forth;
it really needs simply to illustrate the property that has been
stolen. If you take very famous works of art that are stolen,
it is quite clear their notoriety is such that they simply cannot
enter the legitimate marketplace. The database will have the effect
of extending that further down the scale, and I think that would
be very beneficial.
Q156 Michael Fabricant:
Would it be unreasonable or unfair to say that actually London
is currently the weak link in the market, that London is the equivalent
of a car boot sale, and that, if you want to dispose of illicit
objects of art, London is the place currently to do it?
Mr Browne: Not
according to the findings of the Illicit Trade Advisory Panel.
We did a great deal of work on that actually. It is very convenient
for people to say, "Well, we have got a very large legitimate
marketplace here, ergo there must be an illicit market."
I think the two are entirely separate. Certainly we found very
little evidence for it. I am happy to expand on the illicit market
point if you wish, but I do not want to monopolise this.
Q157 Michael Fabricant:
Let us not do that at the moment. I want to ask you one more thing.
You mentioned the witnesses who came last week. Three of them
of course represented databases. One of them was from the Art
Loss Register, who had made approaches to the Home Office for
a free trial of a sort of national database of the sort we have
been discussing, where it would be generally available on the
Internet, not only obviously to people in the United Kingdom but
also potential purchasers throughout the world. When the contact
was made back in 2001, the then head of the Violent and Property
Crime Section at the Home Office said, in relation to the establishment
of such a service, "I understand that the slow progress being
made must be frustrating for you." She went on to give an
assurance: "It is obviously important to ensure that we establish
the most effective process for taking forward this work. I will
write again as soon as I have something definite to report, which
I hope will be shortly." We learned yesterday there was no
subsequent letter from the Home Office and the whole thing was
dropped. I wonder what might be your reaction to that and what
action you might have taken in the meantime or could take now
to encourage such a national database being established?
Mr Browne: I suppose
my reaction, to sum it up in a word, is frustration. I think that
we have tried very hard for this. At the moment there has not
really been any progress, as you have quite rightly reported.
As far as what we are doing, we have been pressing like mad for
it. Our view is entirely consistent and has been for quite a number
of years now.
Q158 Michael Fabricant:
You have supported the efforts of Julian Radcliffe of the Art
Loss Register.
Mr Browne: Yes.
Q159 Michael Fabricant:
And you have been pressing, you say. Have you been pressing since
2001?
Mr Browne: Yes,
before that. 2000, I would say. We take part in the Illicit Trade
Advisory Panel and we made this recommendation. You will be talking,
I know, to Professor Palmer later, and it was, as far as we, the
representatives of the art market on this panel, were concerned,
a rather important part of this report. It is, I am afraid, frustrating
that no progress has been made. As you know, a lot of my members
support Julian Radcliffe's Art Loss Register already. I think
from the point of view of our federation, we have taken a somewhat
agnostic view as to whether this should be done entirely by the
Government or whether it is a private/public partnership or whatever.
We are interested in the end result, not necessarily how it is
achieved.
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