May 15 2003
A printing factory forklift driver yesterday admitted stealing pages from the latest Harry Potter novel.
Donald Parfitt, 44, pleaded guilty to theft when he appeared before magistrates in Lowestoft, Suffolk.
Parfitt was arrested a week ago after attempts were made to sell the stolen pages to the British tabloid The Sun
Parfitt, who worked at Clays Printers, whereHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is being printed, told police he found the pages in a work carpark.
"At that point he should have given it back but he didn't," defence counsel Richard Mann said.
"He thought of it at that point as good luck. It turned out to be very bad luck."
Mann said Parfitt later changed his mind about selling the pages but events had gone beyond his control.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in JK Rowling's best-selling series, is due to go on sale on June 21.
Two 16-year-old boys today admitted receiving stolen property while a fourth person, 18-year-old carpenter Garry Cox, pleaded not guilty to receiving stolen property.
All four cases were adjourned to a later date.
A plot to sell top-secret chapters of the new Harry Potter book has been foiled by The Sun in a late-night sting. The Sun launched the operation after we received a string of mysterious calls from a seemingly dodgy character who used at least two different phone boxes. He offered four chapters of Rowling’s latest story about the boy wizard, The Order of the Phoenix. Detectives believe they were stolen from a printing firm.
Sun reporter Tom Worden carried out the sting by persuading two teenagers to give him the chapters during a meeting at a dimly-lit, empty supermarket car park in Beccles, Suffolk. We tipped off the police about the rendezvous - five miles from the Bungay plant of Potter printers Clays Ltd. And as soon as the book was in safe hands cops swooped to arrest the pair. Two others thought to be involved in the scam - a middle-aged man and a lad of 16 - were collared at a house nearby.
Our rendezvous took place at 10:15pm in the Safeway car park. The caller told us he would be at the far end in a car with its light on. Asked what he wanted, he replied: "Money. Around about £20,000, if that's not too much." Worden found a beefy 18-year-old rolling cigarettes in the front of the car and a 16-year-old lad swigging Lucozade in the back. After he climbed in they produced the printed chapters -- the book's first two and last two, stuck together -- in a plastic bag. The older lad claimed they found them in a lay-by on the A143 near Harleston, Norfolk. Worden pretend they might be offered £10,000 but said the chapters would have to be verified as genuine. He was given the book and left the car, saying that he would be back. The teenagers were then nicked by three cops.
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