Stolen £1million painting turns up under drug dealer’s bed

A STOLEN painting worth £1million has been returned to its owners after it was found stashed under a drug dealer’s bed.

The work, by Sir Stanley Spencer and called Cookham from Englefield, was taken from the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Berkshire, in 2012.

Its whereabouts remained a mystery until police arrested Harry Fisher, 28, in June last year, after finding a kilogram of cocaine and £30,000 in cash in his Mercedes.

When officers raided his flat in Kingston-upon-Thames, west London, they discovered the artwork, pictured, under his bed next to 3kg of cocaine and 15,000 ecstasy tablets. A further raid on his family home in Fulham found more Class A drugs, totalling a street value of £450,000, and £40,000 in cash.

Fisher was jailed for eight years and eight months at Kingston Crown Court in October, having pleaded guilty to a string of offences, including conspiracy to supply drugs and handling stolen goods.

His passenger at the time of arrest, Zak Lal, 32, from Rochester, Kent, was jailed for five years and eight months for similar offences.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said the painting’s owners, who were ‘devastated’ at the loss, were finally reunited with the 1948 oil painting last month.

Sir Stanley, who died in 1959, often used the Berkshire village of Cookham, where he was born, as inspiration for his work.

Arts minister Michael Ellis said: ‘Spencer is one of our most renowned painters and a true great of the 20th century. It is wonderful that this story has had a happy ending and the painting has been returned to its rightful owners.’