The
Jewish Chronicle, London Friday, October 2, 1998 Salesman
tricked into art scam by Holocaust
pledge BY
A CORRESPONDENT A
MAN CHARGED with an elaborate art scam is
alleged to have told a former neighbour
who innocently sold forged paintings that
the proceeds would fund the purchase of
Russian archive material to "disprove the
revisionist theory of the
Holocaust." Southwark
Crown Court was told that John
Drewe had paid an impoverished artist
to paint pictures in the style of modem
masters. According
to prosecuting counsel John Bevan,
he also planted fictional histories in the
Victoria & Albert Museum and the Tate
Gallery. The
worthless paintings were sold for
thousands of pounds. Armed with the bogus
background material, Drewe is alleged to
have duped a string of salesmen into
approaching galleries and auctioneers --
Sotheby's and Christie's among them -- to
put the pictures up for sale. Among
those he recruited to sell the works on a
commission basis was air-conditioning
salesman Clive Belman, the former
neighbour. Prosecuting counsel described
Mr Belman -- who formerly ran a jewellery
business -- as "a good salesman who knew
nothing about art." It
was claimed Drewe had told him he was a
nuclear physicist who belonged to a
syndicate wishing to sell up to 300
paintings stored in safe-deposit boxes. Mr
Belman was led to believe that funds from
the sales would purchase material designed
to counter the arguments of those who
suggested that the Holocaust was a
myth.The prosecutor said that as Mr Belman
was Jewish, he "saw it as a worthy cause
and was wholly taken in." Believing
the money would go towards such a cause,
he was also persuaded of the need for
discretion. "Mr Belman had no idea the
works were fake." Mr Bevan claimed that
Drewe appeared "unrepentant at the damage
caused to the good name of others and
unscrupulous in his attitude to those he
used. He is a consummate and expert
operator." Drewe,
50, of Reigate, Surrey, and male nurse
Daniel Stoakes, 52, from Exeter,
Devon, deny conspiring with artist John
Myatt and others to defraud between
January, 1986, and April, 1996. Drewe
denies further charges against him of
forgery, theft and false
accounting. The
trial continues. ![](../../std/dings/square.gif) |