A new bronze age for thieves

Two bronze statues worth £45,000 ($130,000) in total have become the latest artworks to be stolen by thieves believed to be taking sculptures for their scrap metal value.

Police will examine whether the criminals behind the most recent thefts in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire are responsible for taking a £3 million Henry Moore bronze sculpture last December.

In January part of a £600,000 bronze sculpted by Lynn Chadwick was taken from grounds of a London university. In total more than 20 similar thefts of bronze artworks have been carried out in Britain in the past year.

In the most recent thefts a bronze, depicting a World War I soldier on a horse, was taken from its plinth at St Leonard's Church in Semley, Wiltshire, and a statue created in memory of a WWI veteran was stolen from St Mary's Church in Chedzoy, Somerset.

- INDEPENDENT