‘Banksy’s Girl with Balloon was stolen from my gallery – London is not safe for art’

The boss of a central London gallery has told Metro they have abandoned their Fitzrovia exhibition space after a £270,000 Banksy heist.

The ‘Girl with Balloon’ print was stolen by Larry Fraser in September last year and was returned to the Grove Gallery by the Met Police four days later.

The Grove’s CEO James Ryan revealed the alarm fail to pick up the break-in, triggering false rumours and paranoia about it being an inside job.

Speaking for the first time since a court sentenced Fraser to 13 months in jail for the burglary, the gallery boss warned other art houses in London that they were at risk of new high-profile raids.

Ryan, 36, told Metro: ‘If my business is not going to be safe then I don’t have much of a business. I just thought I’ve had enough of this.

‘We want to protect the art and the artists that we represent. The break in made us look at the vulnerability of the traditional way of running a gallery.

‘If you’ve got a gallery that has got some valuable stuff in it from big names then it’s fair game for these people.

‘It’s going to take time for them to get caught. They might not ever get caught, might not even be investigated. Their mindset is “Well, why wouldn’t I?”‘

The CEO said he knows of other recent burglaries at galleries, with the security costs necessary for protecting artwork putting up the prices for businesses like his.

Ryan, who said they have handed over their space to another gallery, declared: ‘The High Street’s dead for galleries. It’s absolutely dead.

‘What robbers are seeing is a price tag on a piece of art, and they’ll think “I can go get that”.’

‘Insurance premiums are high and it’s just not cost-effective to try and showcase well-known artists’ artworks.’

The art house stayed open for another 12 months after the initial heist the thief used a hammer to force entry through the glass doors before making off with the Banksy.

However Ryan said he only found out about the heist on the Monday morning due to a failure with the alarm.

He continued: ‘The manager called me and I thought he was winding me up.

‘I looked on the camera and I could see the smashed door and I could see that the painting wasn’t there. I couldn’t understand why the alarm hadn’t gone off.’

Instead of triggering an alert to the gallery’s security, who would have called the police, the alarm system tripped before the crucial break-in.

This malfunction left the CEO terrified he’d lose thousands in insurance coverage and triggered a wave of paranoia about whether it had been an inside job.

Ryan added: ‘We feared the insurance company wouldn’t pay out because our alarm tripped.

‘There were a couple of sleepless nights over this. But as it got returned, there wasn’t a claim.

‘My initial fear was it was like an inside job. You start questioning the people around you. It starts to set off the paranoia. The rumours of an inside job unsettled people.’

What ultimately quashed fears of insurance losses and any rumours of an inside informant was the Met police charging two individuals for the burglary.

Fraser, 49, pleaded guilty to one count of non-residential burglary and said he owed money because of a historic drug debt, which he was struggling to settle.

A second defendant, James Love, 54, was found not guilty of non-residential burglary after a trial in September.

The priceless Banksy was ultimately tracked down by the Met’s ‘superb’ Flying Squad to a location just several streets away.

Fraser was caught on CCTV loading the artwork into a van before fleeing and he was arrested just three days later.

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