Prison 'inevitable' for Alex Bateman who faces jail after Dambusters raids
A MILITARY historian is facing jail after he stole the treasured flying logbook of an RAF hero from the Dambusters raids.
Alex Bateman was warned today that a prison sentence was 'inevitable'
Alex Bateman, 48, was warned today that a prison sentence was “inevitable” after he “lied through his teeth” to keep hold of the document belonging to Doris Fraser, 92.
The logbook outlined the role her late husband Flight Sergeant John Fraser played in the famous “bouncing bomb” attacks by 617 Squadron on dams in Germany in May 1943.
Mrs Fraser had sent Bateman the treasured item in 1996 to help with research on a book he was writing about the squadron.
But when Bateman was asked to return it to Mrs Fraser he concocted a string of lies and excuses.
A Christmas card he produced purportedly from Mrs Fraser to him in which she gifted him the memorabilia was proved to be a fake.
Bateman, of Harrow, north-west London, denied one count of theft, but was convicted by a jury after a trial at Wood Green Crown Court.
Mrs Fraser’s husband was 20 when he was shot down during the raid
He’s lied through his teeth to this jury
Judge John Dodd told Bateman he will be sentenced next month. He added: “The length of the sentence which I consider absolutely inevitable, is now something I have to reflect on.”
He added: “He’s lied through his teeth to this jury. He has done something dreadfully cruel. If he does choose to tell the truth and restore the original document, that will help him enormously.”
During his trial the court heard Bateman had previously stolen documents from The National Archives.
Bateman faces jail after he stole the treasured flying logbook from the Dambusters raids
Last May, Bateman was sentenced to 12 months for making indecent images of children.
Mrs Fraser’s husband was 20 when he was shot down during the raid targeting a dam in the Ruhr Valley.
Just days before the mission, bomb aimer Mr Fraser was given special permission to take 24 hours leave so he could marry Doris.
The bomb Mr Fraser dropped struck the dam’s power station but moments later the Lancaster aircraft crashed, killing five crew members.
Mr Fraser bailed out of the burning plane, then trekked more than 200 miles through Germany before being captured and spent the rest of the war in PoW camps.
The brave airman began a new life with his family in Canada after the war but was killed in a plane crash while serving as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1962.
The Petwood Hotel: Home of the Dambusters
His widow offered to help Bateman when she spotted a newspaper advert about his research work.
She posted him the logbook, worth an estimated £10,000, in January 1996 but never saw it again.