William Jacques

William Simon Jacques (born March 1969), nicknamed the "Tome Raider" by the media, is a serial book thief who has been twice convicted after stealing hundreds of rare books worth over £1 million from libraries in the UK.

He studied at the University of Cambridge from October 1987 to 1990, gaining a 2:1 degree in economics from Jesus College, and he is a former chartered accountant who worked with Shell UK.

He lived alone in a bed sit in Maida Vale.

At his second trial, his lawyer said he was by then an odd-job man who relied on the charity of friends.

The library now says that books began to go missing in the early 1990s.

The police interviewed library staff but made no arrests.

Hudson asked auctioneer Rupert Powell who supplied the book, and he named Jacques, who had been doing business with him since 1992 or 1993.

The London Library matched all Jacques' books from that sale as coming from them.

Jacques claimed that he bought the books from a middle-aged man at Portobello Market, paying in cash.

Jacques then faxed the auction house with terms for his co-operation, including maintaining anonymity.

Some books were wrapped in newspaper from 1993 and a forgery kit of antique paper, bindings and book covers was found.

Jacques flew back to the UK after spending only seven weeks in Cuba and he was arrested, still denying that he had stolen the books.

In 1996, Cambridge University Library realised that its two copies of Newton's Principia Mathematica, from the collection of the Bishop of Ely, were missing.

In February 1999, a student at LSE bid £120 for a copy of The Pure Logic of Quality by William Jevons in auction at Bloomsbury Book Auctions in London, and took it to Pickering & Chatto, a book dealers.

The book dealer, Jolyon Hudson, realised that the book was damaged and appeared to be an ex-library book due to evidence of removed labels.

He suspected it was from the London Library, and chief librarian Alan Bell quickly confirmed this.

Cambridgeshire Police opened a case, run by Detective Constable Paul Howitt, and interviewed Jacques in April 1999.

Jacques then transferred £360,000 from his London bank, first to Gibraltar and then to Cuba.

He resigned from Shell and flew to Cuba, and then sent a letter to the police via his solicitor, listing safety deposit boxes in London, York and Cambridge that contained 64 books.

A locker at his work contained more books.

In February 2001 he was charged with 19 counts of theft.

After five weeks he was found guilty and jailed.

He twice appealed without success.

He was jailed in May 2002 for four years, and again in July 2010 for three and a half years.

Jacques is the son of a farmer from Cliffe, Selby, North Yorkshire.

A second trial on two further counts would have taken place in April 2002, but he pleaded guilty.

Twelve more charges were left on file.

He was jailed at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court by Judge Derek Inman on 23 May 2002, and ordered to pay £310,000 in compensation.

Books that Jacques stole include an original of Malthus's Essay on Population, taken from Cambridge University Library and valued at £40,000, and works by Thomas Paine, Galileo and Robert Boyle.

The value of the around 412 books that he stole prior to 2002 from Cambridge University Library, the London Library and the British Library is estimated at £1.1 million.

He sold the books through European auction houses, and many were not recovered.

Gallerie Gerda Bassenge, Zisska and Kistner in Munich, and Christie's in London all auctioned books from him.

After Jacques was released he visited the British Library in April 2004 wearing a beard, long hair and glasses, but he was recognised and removed.

He began stealing books from the Lindley Library of the Royal Horticultural Society in Pimlico under the name Victor Santoro some time after June 2004, when an inventory was last taken.

He also used the pseudonym "David Fletcher".

He moved books around to hide the gaps he left when removing books, which he concealed under his tweed jacket.

Staff later realised that he signed in when he had both arms free, but never signed out.

In March 2007 he was seen placing a book under his jacket, and when he next visited the library they called the police and he was arrested.

Writer Tim Richardson, who witnessed the arrest, said that "the man I saw looked rather anonymous in a cheap blue anorak – which is, perhaps, the most effective look for a book thief."

On being searched a list of seventy titles that he had stolen or intended to steal was discovered, which included works by Charles Darwin and Edward Lear.