Melvin West was handed a three‑year sentence on March 4, 2025, for cutting a single 12‑panel Nova Orbis map from the National Maritime Museum’s collection on February 26, 2025. The map, one of only three extant copies, was removed with a Stanley knife and later proven to belong to West by DNA on a discarded blade and CCTV footage of him alone in the Reading Room.
West had visited the Caird Library on two separate occasions—December 19‑20, 2024, and February 25‑26, 2025—before the theft. He was the last person seen alone in the reading room on the day of the act, and the museum’s security logs show no other visitors at that hour.
Judge Charlotte Welsh, presiding at Woolwich Crown Court, dismissed West’s request for a delay, noting that he had been given eight months to return the map after a heart bypass and had repeatedly failed to comply. Welsh called West a “career criminal” and highlighted his 107‑count criminal record, including convictions in Hungary and France.
The National Maritime Museum described the Nova Orbis atlas as a symbolic work of art, stressing that the damage inflicted extends beyond monetary value. Detective Constable Sophie Hayes of the Metropolitan Police’s Art and Antiques Unit urged anyone with information about the map’s whereabouts to come forward, citing the atlas’s importance to scholars worldwide.
Police have issued a public appeal for the map’s location, and a follow‑up court hearing is scheduled for May 15, 2025, to determine any further penalties or restitution measures.