Thieves target Nobel prize winner’s widow for his medal
THE widow of a Nobel Prize winner has been burgled twice by thieves she believes want to steal his £500,000 gold medal.
Rona Black nearly came face to face with the raiders but has now spoken out to avoid further break-ins.
She believes she disturbed them during the first burglary, which happened as she returned home from holiday.
The second occurred on Wednesday evening, minutes after she left home to visit a friend.
Newly-installed CCTV captured a man on the roof of her home in Dulwich, southeast London, and police are investigating.
Lady Black, 77, wants the criminals to know the Nobel and Order of Merit medals given to her late husband Sir James Black, who discovered beta-blockers, are not kept in the house.
The solid 18- carat gold Nobel medal weighs 6.17oz and is thought to be worth at least £500,000, while the Order of Merit medal is priceless because there are only 24 in existence.
Sir James, who died in 2010 aged 85, donated his Nobel medal to the National Museum of Scotland in 2009, and it is on display in Edinburgh. The Order of Merit medal was returned to Buckingham Palace on his death.
Lady Black, known professionally as the award-winning dermatologist Professor Rona MacKie, told the London Evening Standard: ‘The fact that they came back does make you worry what they are looking for, and to what extent they will go to get it.
‘I spent January turning my little house into Fort Knox. I thought I was safe but they got back in again, despite the CCTV and a better burglar alarm.
‘I don’t think I can do anything else to stop them. I would like the message to go out that there are no valuable medals in my possession at all.’
Lady Black was returning on December 29 from Christmas with her son in Australia when the first raid happened. ‘They had trashed the bedroom,’ she said. ‘I think I was probably the one who disturbed Honour: Sir James receives Order of Merit from Queen CCTV: Suspect climbs across house roof them. Behind one of the to be looking for more medals. I don’t know.’ Sir James, a physician wardrobes was a small safe. They ignored a camera and a radio and pharmacologist, won the
‘They had obviously spent a lot and other electrical items. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine of time trying to drill it out. There ‘The CCTV shows a man on my in 1988 for discovering the was cement dust everywhere.’ roof at 7.33pm. You can see him beta-blocker, propranolol, which
Her bedroom door had been fiddling with my security light. He relaxes blood vessels and lowers blocked shut from the inside and seems to be talking to someone at blood pressure by moderating the windows of the glass door the back of the garden that leads how hard the heart beats. were carefully smashed to avoid He also played a key role in the setting off the burglar alarm. anti-ulcer drug cimetidine.
Some of her own medals, her The Order of Merit is the personal husband’s knighthood insignia gift of the monarch and is and her grandmother’s wedding restricted to 24 living recipients, ring were stolen. meaning a medal must be returned
She installed a new motion-activated when its owner dies. burglar alarm and CCTV Current recipients include Sir but was burgled again on Wednesday David Attenborough and internet evening. founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
The thieves pulled the alarm The Nobel medal of James from a wall to disable it after Watson, who helped discover the smashing through her bedroom structure of DNA, was sold for window. She added: ‘They seemed £2.6million in 2014. to the lane. This time round he has taken jewellery and a cache of medals in my husband’s study, mostly non-precious medals.
‘I just wonder if he is looking for a Nobel prize medal, though how anybody got to know this is the home of the late Sir James Black,
‘They trashed the bedroom’