Museum theft `not for cash’: [1 All-round Country Edition]
Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 30 Sep 2003: 7.
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Abstract
The controversy over Mr van Leeuwen’s collecting mania spilled over into the Independent Commission Against Corruption, whose investigations eventually uncovered his identity and enveloped the museum and its director, Mike Archer.
Mr van Leeuwen, a passionate collector and skilled taxidermist since his boyhood in Holland, appears to have been humiliated by his role as a pest exterminator at the museum and the way he was treated by other staff.
Full Text
THE man who stole more than 2000 items from the Australian Museum in Sydney says he did it for the passion of collecting, not for money.
Talking publicly for the first time, to the ABC’s Four Corners, the man at the heart of the scandal that has enveloped the 176-year- old institution said he was was a Clark Kent type by day and a fanatical taxidermist by night.
Hank van Leeuwen, a pest controller at the museum, had free access to millions of rare and scientific specimens built up by generations of scientists.
Items he allegedly stole included skulls of the extinct Tasmanian tiger.
The controversy over Mr van Leeuwen’s collecting mania spilled over into the Independent Commission Against Corruption, whose investigations eventually uncovered his identity and enveloped the museum and its director, Mike Archer.
ICAC raided Mr van Leeuwen’s home in March and took away more than 2000 items.
Mr van Leeuwen, a passionate collector and skilled taxidermist since his boyhood in Holland, appears to have been humiliated by his role as a pest exterminator at the museum and the way he was treated by other staff.
He says his skill as a taxidermist was overlooked, perhaps because of his lack of education.
He told ICAC that he started with one skull from a suburban storage area but later drove home in one of the museum’s four-wheel drives with the luggage compartment filled with animal skulls.
He described his obsession for collecting as a mad passion. “It takes hold of you after a while and you just … lose the concept of it,” he said.