Dame Helen and case of the stolen painting that gripped the nation
Station. The portrait was found in a station locker, rolled up and frameless.
Bunton was hailed a modern-day hero after it emerged his earlier letter to the National Gallery had stated they could have “three pennyworth of old Spanish firewood in exchange for £140,000 of human happiness”.
In court, sporting NHS issue Bakelite glasses, Bunton pleaded not guilty to theft on the grounds that he only took the portrait.
He was defended by QC Jeremy Hutchinson, who famously represented Christine Keeler when she was prosecuted for perjury over the Profumo affair.
Hutchinson argued that Bunton had only “borrowed” the artwork in reaction to “an outrageous sum” being paid for it “when so many old age pensioners could not even afford a television licence”.
Jurors were seen smiling broadly during the defence argument – and they cleared Bunton of theft. But the judge jailed him for three months anyway for stealing the picture’s frame.
THINKER
May, a cleaner, jumped to his defence, telling the court her husband was “a clever man and a deep thinker with absolutely no regard for money”.
She said: “He would go a whole week with a halfpenny in his pocket providing he got his meals.
“He doesn’t drink and would share his last pipe of baccy with anyone who had none.” But she did ruefully add that former air raid warden Bunton always ended up leaving jobs after “rowing with his boss over a matter of principle”.
The theft was even referenced in the 1962 James Bond film Dr No.
When Bond star Sir Sean Connery entered his enemy’s den, he spotted the missing Goya on an easel and blurted: “So there it is!”
Bunton died in 1976 but the mystery of exactly how he pulled off his heist deepened as recently as 2012 when a National Archive file revealed that his son John had also confessed to the theft in 1969.
Police believed he was telling the truth because it was unlikely his father, weighing 18st, would have had the agility to scale a wall and break in via a window.
But, reportedly worried about press reaction and still reeling from the result in Kempton’s case, the authorities took no action. Actress Dame Helen, 74, will be hoping The Duke enjoys the same success as her last film made in Yorkshire – Calendar Girls, back in 2003.
She has enjoyed her time in Bradford, tweeting pictures of the city’s famous mills and a shot of four friends enjoying a 1980s theme night.
Helen also praised a local Indian restaurant and said she laughed her “socks off ” watching Snow White at the Alhambra Theatre.
Meanwhile, almost 80 years on, the issue of pensioners and TV licences still rages – with free permits for the over-75s being axed in June.
But curators at the National Gallery are expecting a Bunton-style visit any time soon.
Bunton did not steal the famous portrait... he merely borrowed it JEREMY HUTCHINSON QC ADDRESSING JURORS