Banksy theft accused denies stealing anti-war street art piece of three drones on a traffic ‘STOP' sign

Daily Mail​

4 days ago

A man accused of stealing an original ' Banksy ' anti-war street art piece - depicting three drones on a traffic 'STOP' sign - has appeared in court for the first time.
Leon Lawrence, 45, from Southwark in south London, pleaded not guilty and elected for a crown court trial.
He is charged with stealing a STOP sign of value 'unknown' belonging to the London Borough of Southwark on December 22 2023.
Prosecutor Nathan Paine-Davey told Croydon Magistrates' Court: 'This is suitable to be tried here. It is one matter of theft of a STOP sign, belonging to Southwark Council.
'The fact it is said to have been painted by "Banksy" is irrelevant to the offence, apart from saying that perhaps that makes it more valuable.
'The police say bolt cutters were used to remove the STOP sign and it was taken away.
'The artist confirmed on Instagram it was his work. As a STOP sign the value is nominal, but as an artwork it may be something else.'
A shocked crowd gathered on the junction of Commercial Way and Southampton Way, Peckham, just after 12noon on December 22 2023 as they watched a male, standing on a Lime white bike, remove the sign.
The Metropolitan Police said at the time two men, one in his 20s and the other in his 40s, were arrested in connection with the incident.
That came less than an hour after the elusive artist had confirmed on his official Instagram account that the drones were his artwork.
Lawrence has been released on unconditional bail to appear at Inner London Crown Court on September 3.
At the time of the theft, Ian Syer, co-founder of MyArtBroker, told the Daily Mail: 'Street installations by Banksy are typically hard to sell due to usually having to remove entire walls of buildings.
'But these chaps had it away in minutes but they'd be lucky to get £250,000 for it, if a buyer ever came forward.
'However, it's our view these installations should never be sold and should be preserved and enjoyed by the public, not stolen for a quick profit.'
Banksy, whose career began in the 1990s, is known by millions of people thanks to the appearance of dozens of iconic artworks in unexpected locations around the world, with many having gone on to sell for millions.
For years his identity has been a hot topic, with names such as Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja and Gorillaz founder Jamie Hewlett being floated.
Also suggested is public schoolboy Robin Gunningham, who was 'unmasked' as Banksy by the Mail On Sunday in 2008 after an investigation into his past.
He was described as a former public schoolboy from Bristol, with the newspaper also publishing a photograph taken in Jamaica in 2004 that showed a man with a bag of spray cans by his feet - identified as Mr Gunningham.
However, Mr Gunningham's family denied that he was Banksy.
One of Banksy's most striking moments was in 2003 when he disguised himself as a pensioner and installed a piece in a vacant spot in the Tate Britain in London.
His artwork Girl With Balloon self- destructed in a Sotheby's London saleroom when descending into a shredder in 2018.
That piece was then renamed Love Is In The Bin, which in 2021 sold for £18.6million - an all-time high for a Banksy artwork.
Who is Banksy? A former public schoolboy from middle-class suburbia, Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja or Gorillaz founder Jamie Hewlett, the theories behind the identity of the world's most elusive street artist
The identity of Banksy is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the world, but that hasn't stopped people from speculating.
The street artist, whose career began in the 90s, is known by millions of people thanks to the appearance of dozens of iconic artworks in unexpected locations around the world, with many having gone on to sell for millions.
For years his identity has been a hot topic, with names such as Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja and Gorillaz founder Jamie Hewlett being floated around.
Regardless of who he his, Banksy's works are hot property on the art market.
In 2021, his 'Love is in the Bin' work was bought for more than £18million, with its value having been boosted after a shredder hidden in its frame cut it to pieces moments after it was sold for the first time in 2018.
The work, previously known as 'Girl with Balloon', was just one of more than a dozen of Banksy's creations that have sold for more than £2million.
Robin Gunningham
Banksy uses art as a form of activism, regularly making societal and political statements with their works.
The artist was born just outside of Bristol in 1973 and he was a talented illustrator who drew cartoons.
Having also sprayed his tag across Bristol, Banksy then evolved with the times and began creating more sophisticated pieces, whilst always keeping his identity hidden.
One of Banksy's earliest works is the The Mild Mild West.
The large mural was painted in 1999 in Bristol's Stokes Croft and shows a teddy bear throwing a Molotov cocktail at three riot police.
It was painted by the artist over three days in broad daylight and is still in the city today, among some of Banksy's other works.
An exhaustive Mail On Sunday investigation into Banksy's identity in 2008 heard from dozens of friends, former colleagues, enemies, flatmates and even family members.
The search began with an image of a man in Jamaica at work with his stencils and cans of spray paint.
Although Banksy denied the image showed him, the Mail's investigation was later backed by researchers at Queen Mary University.
They used 'geographic profiling' - a technique more often used to catch criminals or track outbreaks of disease - to plot the locations of 192 of Banksy's presumed artworks.
The sites indicated 'hot spots' which were narrowed down to pinpoint an individual. Peaks within these clusters were found to correlate to a pub, playing fields and residential addresses closely linked to Robin Gunningham and his friends and family.
Mr Gunningham attended Bristol Cathedral School and was born in July 1973. A school photo of him bore a striking resemblance to the man in the Jamaica photograph.
A former school friend described him as being 'extremely talented' at art and admitted he would 'not be at all surprised' if he was Banksy.
In anonymous interviews he has done, Banksy has said he first became interested in graffiti at school.
And a fellow artist he was living with in Bristol in 1998, Luke Egan, went on to exhibit with Banksy at Santa's Ghetto, an art store in London's West End.
However, Mr Gunningham's family denied that he was Banksy and the link was never explicitly confirmed.
Robert Del Naja
Another popular theory is that Banksy is Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja.
As well as being a founder member of his hit band, who have sold more than 13million studio albums worldwide, Del Naja, 58, is also a graffiti artist who has done work in Bristol under the name of 3D.
Banksy has named 3D as one of his early inspirations.
The assumption that Del Naja could be Banksy was first discussed after DJ Goldie reportedly said his name on a podcast while talking about him.
He said: 'No disrespect to Rob, I think he is a brilliant artist. I think he has flipped the world of art over.'
Fans have also claimed to have spotted Banksy artworks in the same cities as where Massive Attack played-twice. But Del Naja has denied the claims publicly.
Jamie Hewlett
It has also been suggested that Jamie Hewlett, who founded the Gorillaz, could be Banksy.
This was because an anonymous forensic expert allegedly linked him to every company associated with the street artist.
Banksy has also designed work used in the Gorillaz music videos in the past. But any link has been denied by his publicist.
Many people also claim to have actually spotted Banksy over the years.
One more recent sighting was apparently of the street artist wearing PPE while on the London Underground in 2020.
And in 2018, it was claimed that a passerby had seen him near one of his works in Hull.
Meanwhile, in April 2017, a woman saw an artist in an Israeli mall who was working. The artist had recently opened an exhibition in Bethlehem.
She filmed the man, who seemed concerned and covered his face when he realised he was on camera.
Fleeing artist in Melbourne
In October 2016, an artist furious he was being filmed was captured on camera on in Melbourne, sparking rumours that he was Banksy.
In the mobile phone footage, the person filming was seen approaching a man down a dark alleyway as he sprayed paint on wall.
After he began walking away, she raced after the man, who turned and tried to block the camera with his hand, shouting 'f*** off, f*** off', before escaping down an alley.
Man in Brooklyn warehouse
In 2013, many believed Banksy's identity had finally been revealed and Twitter blew up after user @DjJonHenry posted photographs of a group of men and two trucks used for Banksy's recent Sirens Of The Lambs and Waterfall mobile works of art.
The photo showed five men arranging stuffed animals in a truck outside a warehouse in Red Hook Brooklyn, leading to speculation that one of the men was the reclusive artist.
Henry said the photographs were taken at a warehouse in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn and that he approached the men after recognizing the vehicles from Banksy's month-long residency in New York.
The men refused to answer when Henry asked where Banksy was, although he tweeted that he thought the man on top of the truck might be him since he was directing the others and spoke with an English accent.
Other media sources, including Gothamist, speculated that the man to the left of the vehicle could be Banksy because he boew a resemblance to the man in the photo published by the MoS in their 2008 investigation that named Mr Gunningham as Banksy.
Henry backtracked the claims after receiving a mass of replies from Banksy-fans who accused him of trying to jeopardize the remainder of Banksy's show.
Thierry Guetta
The Street artist's 2010 documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop shares the story of Theiry Guetta, a street artist in Los Angeles who goes by the name Mr Brainwash.
The French filmmaker runs a vintage clothing shop and obsesses over filming his surroundings, he became famous after the documentary and rumours spread that he was Banksy.
The theory has been flattened by various sources.
An unnamed woman
Most theories assume Banksy is a man, but some rumours emerged that the artist is actually a woman in charge of a group of artists.
Chris Healey first put forward the theory in the documentary Banksy Does New York, and says that Banks is the blonde woman who appears in the studio scenes in Exit Through the Gift Shop.
While Healey refuses to give up his source, he maintains his stance.
Richard Pfeiffer
The Brooklyn freelance engineer and artist was admiring one of Banky's works in Manhattan with his girlfriend when he was arrested and accused of drawing the image.
At the time, he had a pen in his pocket but was able to prove it was not the same one that drew the graffiti and the charges were dropped six months later.