A RETIRED RAF officer was cleared by a jury today (Friday) of stealing a valuable Battle of Britain steam train nameplate, along with the dealer who was accused of dishonestly receiving it, writes Roger Pearson.

Former Squadron Leader Philip John Morley Angus, 66, always maintained he simply took home the Lord Dowding nameplate from RAF Bently Priory to restore it and had no dishonest intent.

He sold it for £12,000 to David Ewart Jones, 62, boss of Great Central Railwayana, who has also maintained his innocence, insisting he did not know it was missing from the RAF base.

Today a Harrow Crown Court jury took only 20 minutes to unanimously find Mr Angus, of Morecambe Lodge, Archenfield Road, Ross-on-Wye, not guilty of one count of stealing the nameplate between January 1, 1999, and January 1, 2000.

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They also unanimously acquitted Mr Jones, of 14 School Street, Woodford Halse, Daventry, of one count of dishonestly receiving stolen goods between May 24, 2010, and December 31, 2011.

Now retired, Mr Angus was president of the officers’ mess committee when he took the nameplate from the secure fine arts store more than 20 years ago, selling it to Jones in 2011.

His lawyer, Jonathan Reuben, told the jurors: “When Philip Angus found the nameplate in 1999 he looked to see if there was a label to identify ownership.

“In his view the plate had been lying in a storeroom for a long time, with no specific owner and no one wanting it.

“It was left to rot. He thought it had been abandoned. He wanted to restore it.”

Mr Jones bought it and later sold it to a collector, along with a matching metal crest in 2013 for £65,000, but when that buyer ran into financial difficulties it ended up in a November 2017 Tennants auction and was identified to the police.

During the trial Mr Jones, who watched from his home via videolink due to health problems, told the jury the nameplate “looked a bit of a mess”.

The nameplate was a tribute to World War II military leader Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, and two of them adorned either side of one of 44 official 1947 Battle of Britain class steam locomotives.

Lord Dowding’s stepson, David Whiting, loaned the nameplate and accompanying crest to RAF Bentley Prior in 1990 for their Battle of Britain 50th anniversary exhibition.

Bently Priory, in Stanmore, north London, was the HQ of Fighter Command during the successful defeat of Germany’s Luftwaffe in 1940.

A copy was made of the nameplate and it was eventually secured to the wall outside the officers’ mess, with the original held in a secure vault in the fine arts store.

Mr Jones maintained during the trial he did not associate the nameplate he bought from Angus with the missing one loaned by Lord Dowding’s stepson.

“It was crystal clear from the condition of it that it was not the same plate, because I knew David Whiting’s plate was fully painted up, restored and polished and this one was in very poor condition,” he said.

Prosecutor James Keeley told the jury at the start of the week-long trial that Mr Whiting requested the return of his family heirlooms in 2006.

“The crest was returned, but the nameplate could not be found and it was reported stolen and the RAF conducted their own investigation, without identifying a suspect or the location of the nameplate.”

However, the nameplate was identified at the auction and police found the last owner was a railway memorabilia collector, who had bought it from Mr Jones.

Mr Jones had assured the customer of the item’s provenance, reeling off a long list of seemingly genuine previous owners in Brighton, Devon and north London.

“He told the customer it had taken him several years to reunite the nameplate and the crest,” the prosecutor told the court.

“The customer was interested, but was concerned because he was aware that there had been a Lord Dowding nameplate stolen from Bently Priory.

“Mr Jones went through a list of people who had owned the nameplate, the last being a north London collector, who had screwed it to the side of his garage.

“The name of the first private owner of the nameplate was still visible, painted on the inside, said Mr Jones, who said there were no worries the nameplate was legitimate with a chain of owners.”

When police visited Mr Jones he revealed he had bought it from Mr Angus, who was questioned by officers at Charing Cross police station on May 15, 2018.

The prosecutor told the court: “He said in 1999 he served at Bently Priory as the president of officers’ mess committee and agreed to dispose of some old memorabilia.

“He found the Lord Dowding in a storeroom and asked a senior officer if he could take the nameplate home to restore it.

“It was kept in a store area, he said, but due to work pressures and medical issues he did not complete the restoration and retired in 2000.

“He told the police he had a clear-out of his garage in 2011 and found the nameplate, which he said no one wanted and had been lying around in an RAF storeroom for a long time.”

The prosecutor had told the jury during the trial: “You can be sure he stole the nameplate and Mr Jones bought it and knew he was dealing in stolen goods.”