[West Ender]

No, sorry, you can't equate an art fraud with child molesting on the scale of injury to the person, outrage of morality or evil intent. Having said that, the severity of sentencing often seems to be at the whim of the judge and we have all heard of child molesters who have been treated shockingly leniently and persons involved with the Great God Money who have received long prison stretches.

This guy and his son committed fraud, of that there is no doubt, but their worst crime, from the Art Establishment's point of view, must be that the latter have been made to look like incompetent fools. That is dreadful - true but dreadful.

I've no doubt the old man would have gone to prison if it had been easy to find a place. At the back of my mind, however, I'm thinking - if he could fool people by lying about his "finds", why not about the wheelchair? Does he jump out of it every night and dance round that garden shed? Makes you wonder.