British Museum fires employee over ‘missing, stolen or damaged’ items

The British Museum said Wednesday that it had dismissed a staff member and alerted the police after items from its collection were found to be “missing, stolen or damaged.”

The items included gold jewelry and gems of semi-precious stones and glass dating from 15th century BC to the 19th century, it said in a statement.

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“This is a highly unusual incident,” said Hartwig Fischer, director of the museum in central London, which is best known for housing collections including the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Marbles.

“We take the safeguarding of all the items in our care extremely seriously,” he said.

“The museum apologizes for what has happened but we have now brought an end to this – and we are determined to put things right.”

The museum said legal action would now be taken against the former employee, and an investigation was under way headed by the economic crime unit of London’s Metropolitan Police.

Most of the items affected were described by the museum as “small pieces kept in a storeroom belonging to one of the museum’s collections.”

None had been on recent public display and they were kept mainly for academic and research purposes, it added, without elaborating.

Fischer said security had been tightened and outside experts had been brought in to help compile a “definitive account” of what was missing, damaged or stolen.

“This will allow us to throw our efforts into the recovery of objects,” he said.

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