![]() He is likely to face criminal charges over the thefts. Museum staff suspected Mr van Leeuwen of stealing as early as 1998, but failed to act because of fears that doing so could be construed as harassment. "I recall taking a bag of bats that was laying around. "Sent over from a museum in Western Australia. "In 2002, some bats from Western Australia went missing," he was asked. ![]() A stuffed lion worth £16,000, part of a display last exhibited in 1911, was put in his four-wheel drive car and taken to his house to be displayed in the lounge. He told how he filled the boot of his car with animal skulls on one occasion. ![]() ![]() Mr Van Leeuwen candidly admitted his actions when questioned by the inquiry. Among the specimens crammed into rooms, chest freezers and a backyard shed were two skulls of the extinct Tasmanian tiger, the skin of an endangered Himalayan clouded leopard and whole preserved bodies of the endangered long-beaked echidna and cassowary.Īn inquiry by the New South Wales independent commission against corruption was launched late last year to investigate the five-year spate of thefts, which began just three months after Mr Van Leeuwen began working at the museum, in 1996.Īs a pest controller he had unsupervised access to the entire collection of 13 million items, worth £205m. ![]()
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