Source: www.speakup.com.br
Language level: Pre-intermediate
Speaker: Jason Bermigham (American accent)
Justin Ratcliff (British)
William Simon Jacques
The Gentleman Thief is a famous figure in both fiction and reality, but Britain’s most prestigious libraries don’t like William Simon Jacques. This notorious criminal has stolen rare books from London’s British Library worth more than £1.000.000: one example is Galileo Galilei’s Sidereus Nuncius.
A GENIUS
Jacques studied at Cambridge University and he is a chartered account. He has the IQ of a genius and is a master of disguise. The English newspapers love him: They gave him the nickname “Tome Raider.” But he isn’t so intelligent after all. He was caught in 2002 and spent four years in prison. Jacques was arrested again in 2007 for stealing books from the Royal Horticulture Society valued at £40.000 was released on bail and ran. He was found and arrested at his mom’s home in 2009, and in June 2010 was convicted and sentenced to 3,5 years.
EMBARRASSING
How could Jacques steal such rare books for so many years? He uses his education to obtain librarians’ confidence, and uses false names and disguises, so that nobody can identify him. For example, at the Lindley Library he used the name Mr. Santoro instead of his real name. Another important reason is that library curators don’t often inform the police when books are stolen. Antiquarian bookseller Jolyon Hudson explains: “Libraries are the curators of the nation’s knowledge. They’re too embarrassed to admit losing such important books.” Jacques sells the books with the help of auction houses like Christies of London and specialist book dealers. The police caught him in 1999 because a London book dealer saw that he was trying to cover library markings.
JAILED
“A leopard doesn’t change its spots.” The tabloid newspapers describe Jacques as a gentleman thief, but not everyone agrees. Jacques allegedly showed no remorse during this 2010 sentencing and his reputation has been damaged by his first conviction. The opposite of a gentleman is a scoundrel, and there are many people who say Jacques is exactly that: a scoundrel. His Cambridge University tutor Ian DuQuesnay angrily says: “What William Simon Jacques does is equivalent to splashing paint on the Parthenon.”
WHO EXATLY IS WILLIAM SIMON JACQUES?
He was born in 1969 in North Yorkshire. He studied economics at Cambridge University: his tutor Ian DuQuesnay remembers that he was “a competent, but not exceptional student.” He became an accountant and lived an apparently quiet life in London’s Maida Vale. Then in 1994 he obtained membership of Britain’s most prestigious libraries. In the following five years, he became the most prolific book thief in British history. The books he has stolen include Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1687), Descartes’ Discourse de la Méthode por Bien Cunduire sa Reason (1637) and Kepler’s Astronomia Nova (1609).
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