A MAN accused of stealing and trying to sell a first edition of Shakespeare’s works has accepted the mutilated copy he had was one stolen from a North-East exhibition.

Raymond Scott, 53, is on trial at Newcastle Crown Court, charged with stealing the artefact in 1998 from the Bishop Cosin Library, in Durham City.

He denies the charge, but yesterday, his barrister, Toby Hedworth QC, told the jury that Mr Scott now believed the 1623 copy he wanted to sell belongs to Durham University.

Mr Scott, from Sandgate Close, Wingate, County Durham, took the folio to the Folger Shakespeare Library, in the US capital, Washington, in June 2008, and asked for it to be authenticated, before indicating he wanted to sell it at auction.

He originally said it belonged to Cuban Odeiny Perez. He had inherited it from his mother, who had recently died from cancer, and the manuscript had been in her family since 1877.

His acceptance follows the opening to the case in which Robert Smith QC, prosecuting, said several world experts would confirm it was the stolen manuscript and that it had been “mutilated” to make it harder to identify.

Mr Hedworth said: “The defendant now accepts that the folio that he took to the Folger is, in fact, the folio that was stolen from Durham in 1998.”

The jury was told the manuscript had been shown at an exhibition organised by the university’s English department 12 years earlier.

Ian Doyle, a former university librarian and keeper of rare books, said: “It is the most important printed book of English literature in its contents, since its contents are all or virtually all of Shakespeare’s plays, and as many of them are not in any other printed edition, it is, therefore, the sole source of our knowledge of them.”

Dr Doyle said it was identifiable by peculiarities in the way the book was printed and in its size, plus a handwritten note on the catalogue page.

He said the book, which was normally kept in a safe, was stolen from a reinforced exhibition cabinet protected by three mortise locks.

University staff did not realise immediately because the cabinets were covered by blankets to protect the exhibits from the sun.

The court has heard that Mr Scott became infatuated with a Cuban waitress and had been sending her money, leaving himself £90,000 in debt.

Mr Scott has denied the theft, handling and transportation overseas of the folio. The trial continues.