Man jailed for theft of Olympic medal from Dumfries Museum

Rhona Martin's gold from 2002 was among tens of thousands of pounds worth of items stolen

Author: Paul KellyPublished 2nd Oct 2019

A man involved in a raid on Dumfries Museum has been jailed for over three-and-a-half years.

Sporting memorabilia including the Olympic gold medal won by Scotland's Rhona Martin when she led the British Women's team at Salt Lake City in 2002, were stolen in 2014.

Luke Holland was one of the men who broke into the museum and stole tens of thousands of pounds worth of items from the exhibition.

Rhona Martin’s gold medal has never been recovered, and at Dumfries Sheriff Court Fiscal depute Jennifer McGill said she’d had been left devastated by its loss.

She described how the theft had taken place after three men had visited the exhibition and spent some time at the medal case.

CCTV had later shown their visit and their eventual trail back to the museum where the alert was raised by a neighbour after the alarm went off.

Holland admitted to his part in the raid, as well as failing to appear in court for the case in 2016.

Sheriff Brian Mohan said: “This was a matter that caused a great deal of anxiety locally and the items were of sentimental value to many.”

Two other men had previously been jailed in connection, though one was later released when his conviction was overturned.