Churchill fakes sold on internet, court told (From Daily Echo)

Antiques collector Allan Formhals allegedly sold fake signed books for thousands

7:30am Sunday 14th October 2012 in News

RARE books written by Sir Winston Churchill were bought from charity shops in Hampshire for £2 and then sold for thousands with faked signatures, a court heard.

Antique book collector Allan Formhals is said to have asked a couple from Milford-on-Sea to buy books from charity shops which were then peddled on the Internet.

Rita Wootton told Southampton Crown Court how she had visited charity shops with her husband and bought copies of books for Formhals which were written by the British wartime prime minister.

Jurors had heard how one pair of Churchill collectors paid £10,000 in a series of purchases from Formhals.

They were also told he had sold “signed” copies of books by British author Robert Louis Stevenson and Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.

Formhals, of Keyhaven Road, Milford-on-Sea, denies 13 counts of fraud and two counts of being in possession of forged signatures of people such as JRR Tolkein, Queen Elizabeth I and Marie Antoinette. Proceeding