[MSN] UK. Sentencing delay for art forger. A pensioner who fooled the art world by selling fake antiques his son had made, has had his sentencing adjourned. George Greenhalgh was given bail and will be sentenced on 28 January.

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Sentencing delay for art forger

A pensioner who fooled the art world by selling fake antiques his son had made, has had his sentencing adjourned.

George Greenhalgh, 84, of Bolton, is convicted of conspiracy to defraud for the con, which also involved his wife Olive, 83, and son Shaun, 47.

Shaun Greenhalgh was jailed for four years and eight months last year.

At Bolton Crown Court, Judge William Morris said a younger man would go to prison for the offence. He adjourned sentencing for Prison Service advice.

The judge said he needed to see if any jails would be able to actually take and "humanely" imprison a wheelchair-bound pensioner in poor health.

The family made at least £850,000 from the scam, including selling the fake Egyptian statue "Princess Amarna" to Bolton Museum for £440,000.

The piece was authenticated by the Egyptology department at Christie's and the British Museum as 3,300 years-old and purportedly a figurine of the daughter of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti, the mother of King Tutankhamen.

It had been made by Shaun Greenhalgh over three weeks in the shed of the family home in Bolton.

It is estimated that the family made at least £850,000 from their scam over about 18 years.

Olive Greenhalgh was given a suspended jail term of 12 months after admitting conspiracy to defraud.

Chicago gallery

At the trial Shaun Greenhalgh told the judge all his fakes had been traced so they could not be sold on.

But last month it was discovered the Institute of Art in Chicago had paid £60,000 in 1994 for The Faun.

The pottery work purportedly by the French master Paul Gauguin was produced in the Greenhalgh garden shed.

George Greenhalgh was given bail and will be sentenced on 28 January. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/