Medal-hunting burglars told they are wasting time

The widow of a Nobel Prize winner believes two break-ins at her home just weeks apart may have been carried out by thieves looking for the gold medal he received.

Lady Rona Black, whose late Scottish husband Sir James Black invented beta blockers, said her London home was burgled on December 29 and again on Wednesday, with the latter raid being captured on CCTV.

She believes the men who targeted her may have been looking for his 1988 Nobel Prize for Medicine medal and his priceless Order of Merit (OOM) insignia. Lady Black, herself a distinguished medical scientist known professionally as Rona Mackie, spoke out to highlight the fact that neither medal is kept at the house in Dulwich.

The 77-year-old said: “They do seem interested in medals and I just wonder if it is that.

“My husband’s Nobel medal and all his other important medals we donated to the National Museum of Scotland a decade ago, so there is nothing like that in this house.

“The other lovely honour he got was that he was a member of the OOM. The OOM is a beautiful bit of important jewellery.

“That was handed back to the Queen, that’s the pattern when the holder dies.” Hundreds of bikers have paid tribute at the funeral of a motorbike-mad Scottish teenager.

Douglas Barclay, 16, from Motherwell died last week.

His family had appealed for bikers to take part in a fitting tribute and say they were “overwhelmed” by the incredible response.

Douglas suffered from West Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy.

Sharon Morris and Sandra Morris, his grandmother and mother, are shown. Picture: