The report included a photo of one of Edwin’s flies, known as the Green Highlander. “He explained to me how each feather is different,” Baron-Cohen wrote, “and how his deep interest is in understanding the nature of each feather.” Following a century-old pattern, the fly called for feathers from the Ostrich, Summer Duck, Swan, Bustard, Peacock, Golden Pheasant, Mallard, Jungle Cock, Blue and Yellow Macaw, and above all, Indian Crow. The doctor was apparently unaware that some of these birds were protected by domestic and international conservation laws.
“He had not been motivated by money,” Baron-Cohen stressed to the court. Edwin had told the professor about the glory days of Kelson and the Victorians, back when longshoremen unloaded ships full of exotic bird skins at the nearby Port of London. He said he’d taken the birds only “to help bring about the second such golden age,” and that he dreamed of producing a book on fly-tying with photos of the stolen birds. According to Baron-Cohen, it wasn’t greed that drove Edwin but an “‘obsessional’ interest in fly-tying” that made him “so over-focused on this art-form (and all of its intricate detail) that he developed a classic form of ‘tunnel vision’ in only being able to think about the materials and the products he aspired to make, and not about the social consequences (for himself or others).”
When viewed in this light, “breaking into the museum had seemed entirely logical,” Baron-Cohen wrote. “He had felt the only bad thing he had done was breaking the window. . . . It had not dawned on him that he had done anything bad in taking the stuffed birds, and he certainly never wished to upset the specialist fly-tying community in which he was one of the most highly respected artists internationally.” Baron-Cohen reported that Edwin “now understands he upset them by breaking their trust, but at the time this had not even been on his radar.” To the psychopathologist, the fact that Edwin hadn’t anticipated that his fellow fly-tiers might be angry with him and even publicly condemn him for implicating them in his crime was consistent with Asperger’s.
After detailing the principal challenges faced by people with the syndrome—struggling to make friends or read cues in social situations—the professor wrote that Asperger’s “also prevents the individual from conforming to social norms and leads the individual vulnerable to getting into trouble with the law through social naïveté or poor decision-making.”
“All of these issues apply to Edwin,” he informed the court, adding that the student’s scores on the diagnostic forms “are very much in line with this diagnosis, and he shows all the signs of the condition: a pattern of over-focus on small details (which can also be the basis of his talents, in fly-tying, music, and photography, for example) alongside difficulties in social understanding.”
In conclusion, Baron-Cohen wrote: “I am persuaded that the shock of being arrested, the shock of how his reputation as a very serious artist and a world-leader in the fly-tying community has been badly affected, and the feedback from that community and from the police and negative media coverage of the crime, have all led to him learning a sobering lesson, such that the risk of him committing a similar crime in the future is negligible.” He recommended that, rather than imprisonment, Edwin be given resources and counseling.
He also felt it would be best for Edwin to continue his hobby. “Therapeutically,” he wrote, “I have encouraged him not to drop out of the fly-tying world or to drop his long-standing desire to write an important and scholarly book, but instead to complete this writing project and also include an autobiographical chapter in it to explain how his undiagnosed [Asperger’s] led him to commit a crime which he now regrets.”
* * *
–
In the initial hearing, Judge Gullick had made clear that an exploration of Edwin’s mental health was no guarantee of a light sentence, but now that they were armed with a diagnosis of Asperger’s from such a prominent authority, Edwin’s attorneys began looking for ways to tie the judge’s hands.
16
THE ASPERGER’S DEFENSE
All rose as Judge Gullick entered the chamber. It was April 8, 2011—coincidentally, that day also marked the end of spring term at the Royal Academy of Music. Depending on how the judge ruled, Edwin could either march across the graduation stage in a few months’ time or shuffle out in chains that very afternoon. The maximum sentence for his crimes would put the twenty-two-year-old behind bars until his early thirties.
David Chrimes, the prosecutor for the Crown, knew of the Asperger’s diagnosis but nonetheless felt confident in his argument. To him, Edwin seemed fully aware of the consequences of his actions and should be sentenced in accordance with the law, without special consideration of Baron-Cohen’s report.
Contrary to Baron-Cohen’s contention, that Edwin had committed the crime for art, Chrimes stressed that the “offence was committed for financial gain” and that it was not impulsive but carefully planned. He introduced twenty-seven pieces of hard evidence, covering everything from the logistics of the burglary to what was found on Edwin’s computer and in his apartment. He ticked through the facts that Adele had uncovered. On November 5, 2008, seven months before the burglary, Edwin had visited the museum under false pretenses, posing as a photographer “to help out another researcher.” He had photographed far more than bird skins, “taking photographs of the area around the museum, paths, windows and fences included, showing the Defendant at that particular stage was planning his means of entry and, indeed, exit from the museum.” They had found a document on his computer, dated July 4, 2008, entitled “PLAN FOR MUSEUM INVASION.”
The prosecution directed the judge’s attention to notes from Adele’s interrogation, during which Edwin had “explained that he used the money to buy a new flute,” that he “had student debt, and . . . that his parents in America also had financial problems,” arguing that “even in his interview the Defendant was accepting that there was a significant financial element” to his crime. Chrimes then referred the judge to an August 30, 2008, online chat between Edwin and his roommate, in which “the Defendant talked about—and I quote—‘a scheme for raising money by stealing birds from the British Museum of Natural History.’” This kind of prosecution didn’t require courtroom antics: just a steady accumulation of damning information.
Chrimes must have suspected that the quirkiness of the case—a flautist stealing birds from an old museum to sell to men obsessed with an obsolete Victorian art form—might lead the court to overlook its gravity, so he read from a report submitted by Dr. Richard Lane, the museum’s director of science, who described it as “a catastrophic event . . . not only a loss to the UK” but to the “knowledge and heritage” of the planet.
Dr. Lane’s report spoke of the degradation of the skins that were returned, the tags that had been snipped off, and the skins that were still at large. He explained that researchers couldn’t go into a jungle to gather new specimens to replace a two-hundred-year-old skin—their scientific value was derived in large part from their age. They were archival relics of a lost era. In taking them, Edwin had been “stealing knowledge from humanity.”
Lane, who had worked at the Natural History Museum for over forty-two years, had sat through hours of proceedings over the previous several months, waiting for the gears of justice to turn, only to see the sentencing hearing delayed and delayed. Now that it was finally time, he was optimistic, despite the prosecution’s warning that in the courtroom, “things didn’t always go as you might expect them by natural justice.”
Sitting in the defendant’s box, Edwin tried to hold on to a shred of dignity. After all, he and his father had tried to recover some of the birds by messaging a number of his customers, but there was no mention of this. As Chrimes continued and the evidence against him mounted, Edwin felt his most basic sense of self under assault. The prosecution was making him out to be some kind of demon.
“There’s one TIC to be put to the Defendant,” said Chrimes, referring to an additional piece of information that the Crown wis
hed to be Taken Into Consideration in the sentencing: Edwin had stolen a TV from a Royal Academy of Music common room.
Upon Edwin’s admission, the judge agreed to take it into account, and the prosecution rested.
Judge Gullick, who ran an efficient courtroom, turned to Edwin’s barrister. “Now, Mr. Dahlsen. I have read an abundance of paper.”
Dahlsen had submitted a sheaf of documents for the judge’s consideration. Since his client had already admitted his guilt, the barrister’s aim was to mitigate the severity of the punishment. In addition to Baron-Cohen’s diagnosis, he had pulled together character references in support of the young flautist from David Dickey, Edwin’s childhood tutor at the American Museum of Natural History; Ed Muzeroll, his first instructor in Victorian salmon flies; John McLain, the proprietor of FeathersMc.com, who had first taught Edwin the ropes of sourcing rare feathers; and Luc Couturier, who had encouraged Edwin to visit the Tring Museum in the first place.
But the judge didn’t seem particularly interested in these references. He wanted to talk about the precedents from British case law that the defense had flagged for his attention as a guide for determining a fair sentence. And while the prosecution had introduced a damning pile of evidence—that the act was premeditated and motivated by financial gain—it took all of ninety seconds and one precedent for the defense to wrest control of the hearing. All it had to do was mention the case of Crown v. Gibson.
“Before we go any further,” said the judge, “as far as you’re aware the case of Gibson presumably is the only that’s come up on the system with Asperger’s on it?”
“It is,” replied Dahlsen.
“Well, it doesn’t seem to me that this case is any different from that case,” the judge stated.
“It’s not.” Dahlsen echoed, “I can speak at some length, Your Honour—”
“I’m sure you can.”
“If Your Honour wants me to. Or if Your Honour—”
“Well,” the judge interrupted. “Put it this way. If I were to take a view which possibly, I don’t know which newspapers are here, but if certain newspapers took the view that this young man should be locked up forever . . . I think the Court of Appeal might take a different view.”
“Yes. I absolutely agree, Your Honour,” Dahlsen replied, surely beaming with the knowledge that he’d won before even stepping into the court that day.
“Gibson,” remarked Gullick, “is in one sense even more shocking on its facts as to what the individual did.”
* * *
• • •
A decade earlier, in December 2000, twenty-one-year-old Simon Gibson and two of his friends crept into Arnos Vale Cemetery in the heart of Bristol, established in the early nineteenth century just off the southern banks of the River Avon. Near its entrance looms an arched memorial, erected in 1921 for the five hundred servicemen killed during World War I. “THE GLORIOUS DEAD A.D. 1914–1918” is carved deeply into its Bath stone.
Gibson and his friends crept past the monument before stopping in front of a large crypt. The door was secured with a padlock, which Gibson broke off with a hammer. Inside were thirty-four coffins dating from the 1800s. Before each hung a head-plate bearing the name of the deceased.
They had meant only to look around, but when they noticed a damaged tomb, they cleared away the stones, pried open the coffin, and stole a skull and some vertebrae. On their way out, they locked the crypt with a replacement padlock that Gibson had purchased for the occasion. Back at their apartment, they washed the skull in bleach, hosed it off in the garden, and fashioned a necklace out of the vertebrae.
When they went back a second time, they brought a crowbar. After opening another coffin and discovering that the body had not decomposed fully, they left it alone, but on their way out, they stole a memorial flower vase.
They made a party of their third visit, bringing booze, candles, and a camera. As they drank, they posed with the dead, snapping photos inside the crypt. In one, Gibson held up a skull like Hamlet’s poor Yorick.
When they brought the film to be developed at Broadmead, a shopping mall in Bristol, they accidently dropped a few of the photos on their way out. When a security guard discovered them, the police were notified. When they descended upon Gibson’s home, they found the human remains and the vase, which was resting in the middle of the dining table.
The Crown Court judge sentenced Gibson, the ringleader, to eighteen months, declaring his actions “offensive to the public and disrespectful of the deceased.” His friends received lighter sentences.
* * *
–
Edwin’s attorneys were drawn to the case not by what happened during the trial but by what had transpired during Gibson’s appeal.
Gibson, as it turns out, had been diagnosed with Asperger’s. The court of appeal judge, who described Gibson’s obsession with skeletons as nearly uncontrollable—that seeing the open coffins was akin to “a chocoholic being let loose in a Cadbury’s factory”—believed the Crown Court judge had erred by not taking the diagnosis into account when determining the young man’s sentence.
Gibson and his friends were released two days later.
* * *
–
Judge Gullick adjourned to his chambers to decide on a sentence.
When he swept back into the courtroom at 4:05 p.m., Edwin shot to his feet.
“Edwin Rist, you may sit,” he began.
“You’re twenty-two years old. You’ve no criminal convictions. You are a gifted and highly intelligent musician who’s currently studying at the Royal College of Music. You were in your teens a gifted and internationally known fly tyer. In November 2008, you fraudulently obtained permission to photograph items at the National History Museum in Tring. Using your knowledge of what was there, you broke in to a block at that museum on the night of 23rd to 24th June 2009 and stole 299 bird skins. They were taken, I have no doubt, for financial gain but principally to enable you to use the feathers for fly tying.
“The loss of their birds is a natural history disaster of world proportions. These were in effect priceless specimens, both in terms of their financial value but also in terms of their scientific interest. They are literally in many cases irreplaceable.”
The judge then referenced Baron-Cohen’s report, which stated that Edwin was “suffering at the material time from Asperger’s Syndrome, and it is that condition which is behind this behaviour.”
“The public may consider that such a serious offence as this would quite properly merit a lengthy prison sentence,” Gullick continued. “However, I have been directed to a case called Gibson in the Court of Appeal almost ten years ago, which has much in it to assist me to evaluate how the diagnosis of Asperger’s should be dealt with by the Courts.”
The judge then read out five paragraphs from the Gibson ruling, verbatim. “I have read extensively from that case to assist not only you but members of the public, and . . . to assist those who may read the newspapers to understand why it is that I am taking the course of action which I do.
“Mr. Gibson’s case,” he went on, “in terms of his obsessional behaviour is in one sense no different from yours.” As he neared his ruling, Gullick explained the bind Gibson had put him in: “were I to pass a substantial prison sentence upon you, which would be wholly merited by the value if not pricelessness of the items that you stole, no doubt on one view, the public would commend me, and on another view the Court of Appeal in my judgment would severely criticise me in the light of the attitude which they display in the case of Gibson as to the appropriate course that trial Judges should take when faced with somebody suffering from this syndrome.”
He turned to Edwin. “All that can be done is to try to support you and attempt to ensure that this sort of behavior is not repeated.”
Then the sentence came down: twelve months, suspended. So long as he didn’t commit a
ny new crimes during that period, Edwin would never spend a night behind bars.
17
THE MISSING SKINS
The fly-tiers’ reactions to Edwin’s sentencing ranged from outrage to bewilderment to conspicuous silence. “Asperger’s as a defence??? fuck right off, mate . . . this was well planned,” one wrote. An Australian tier was shocked by the way Edwin had skittered through the courts: “If I gain the trust of the curator, rob the museum and sell the goods afterwards I’m going to do a bit of shovel”—slang for spending time in prison. “Even if he was kept out of prison he should have suffered a serious fine and deportation.” Terry chimed in with skepticism about the Asperger’s diagnosis. When the young tier had given a demonstration at his Bristol Fly Dressers’ Guild, he wrote, “he certainly did not display any of the symptoms one would associate with it.”
By comparison, the reaction from Edwin’s conservatory was muted. In the hierarchy of misbehavior that might trigger expulsion from an elite institution like the Royal Academy of Music, a felony theft of scientifically invaluable bird skins didn’t rate. Not only was Edwin going to graduate, he’d be flying to Germany on June 7 to audition for an orchestra. He couldn’t believe his luck.
On June 30 he received his diploma along with the rest of his class. The only thing still hanging over his head was the Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation order, the final step in the sentencing process that would determine the size of his fine. The appointed day was July 29.
The proceedings were brief. The prosecution’s rough math—based on an estimate by a London auctioneer—put the value of the stolen skins at £250,300. It would only later become evident just how conservative this valuation was. To calculate Edwin’s fine, they decided to halve that amount. This led to a confiscation order in the amount of £125,150, or $204,753. According to Chrimes, Edwin had £13,371 “available to pay” in his bank account at that moment but suggested a deadline of six months for payment, arguing that the Crown wouldn’t want the defendant “to lose his piccolo and flute.”
The Feather Thief Page 14