EXCLUSIVE: ‘Get down on the floor or we’ll kill you…’: Decades after a heist at Scottish castle, a tour guide tells for the first time how armed raiders escaped with a £50million Da Vinci painting

It was the biggest and most brazen art heist Scotland had witnessed. Two men signed up for a guided tour of Drumlanrig Castle then, with breathtaking audacity, made off with one of the world’s most valuable paintings – The Madonna of the Yarnwinder by Leonardo Da Vinci. 

After threatening to kill one of the tour guides, the raiders simply prised the £50 million artwork off the wall, climbed out of a window, ran down a flight of stairs, dashed over the grass and fled in a getaway car.

Yet, if the boldness of the thieves was remarkable, what was even more extraordinary was the chain of events – involving shady underworld figures, private investigators and undercover cops – which eventually saw the 16th Century masterpiece returned, after several years, to its aristocratic owners.

The Madonna of the Yarnwinder, one of only two Da Vinci paintings in private hands, was the most valuable artwork ever stolen in Britain.

Now, two decades after the theft from the ancestral home of the Duke of Buccleuch shocked the art world, the tour guide whose life was threatened by the thieves has given her first full account of her terrifying ordeal.

It was the biggest and most brazen art heist Scotland had witnessed. Two men signed up for a guided tour of Drumlanrig Castle then, with breathtaking audacity, made off with one of the world’s most valuable paintings – The Madonna of the Yarnwinder by Leonardo Da Vinci

Dumfries and Galloway handedout CCTV footage, of the suspects – two men posing as visitors

Alison Russell, who was 18 at the time, described how she was overwhelmed by two members of the tour party disguised in hats and glasses and armed with an axe.

She said: ‘One put his hand over my mouth and was like, ‘Get down on the floor or we’ll kill you’.

‘I remember thinking even then, ‘This is weird. This doesn’t seem real. What’s going on here?’, then I thought, ‘I wonder if this is a test or practice run of something?’

‘I don’t think I even said anything. I was just in shock and just did what the guy said. I lay down and didn’t even look up after that.

‘It seemed to go very quickly – they obviously knew what they wanted and took the painting and then it went quiet.’

To this day, the armed robbers have never been identified, let alone brought to justice.

The painting, however, resurfaced four years later after it was handed to Robert Graham, an English private investigator whose attempts to return it to the Buccleuch family saw him accused, but later cleared, of extortion.

Now Mr Graham’s daughter Olivia has produced a podcast – released on the BBC this week – which revisits the incredible story behind the missing Madonna.

It features the secret recording her father made which was used in court to help prove the innocence of his intentions.

The saga began on Wednesday, August 27, 2003, during a guided tour of Drumlanrig Castle, near Thornhill in Dumfriesshire – one of the finest examples of 17th Century Renaissance architecture in Scotland.

The castle features grand reception rooms, magnificent staircases and ornate period features.

It also housed the Buccleuch family’s collection of antique furniture and silver, but the highlight was the fine art display including – hanging side by side in the Staircase Gallery – the Da Vinci Madonna and Rembrandt’s An Old Woman Reading.

500-year-old masterpiece 

The Madonna of the Yarnwinder was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci some time between 1500 and 1508. 

Measuring just 24in by 17in, it depicts a Christ child on a rocky outcrop beside his mother, gazing intently at the cross-shaped yarnwinder.

It came to the Buccleuchs in 1767 with the marriage of the 3rd Duke to Lady Elizabeth Montagu, who inherited a collection of works owned by her parents. 

It is now on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh.

For Mrs Russell, the day began unremarkably. She said: ‘It started off just like any other day working in the castle and getting told where you will be stationed.

‘I was in the staircase hall. You go along and get set up and think, ‘This is what I’m going to talk about today’. The staircase hall is where the Da Vinci painting was as well as a Rembrandt and a Holbein and all these other great artworks.’

For Mrs Russell, now 38, what happened next is seared forever in her memory. She said: ‘I remember being quite surprised at how quickly these two men suddenly appeared.

‘As I did with anybody else, I started talking a wee bit about the paintings and going through the normal spiel. I got the impression they weren’t that interested, so I stepped back a bit and let them have a wee look around.

‘They were fairly well disguised. They had hats on and glasses as well. That can distort an appearance quite a bit so I don’t know whether I’d ever recognise them again.’

As one of them went into the morning room and then came straight back out again, Mrs Russell suddenly found herself unwittingly caught up in one of the century’s most notorious art thefts.

After forcing her to the ground, the thieves prised the Madonna off the wall with an axe – triggering an alarm – then clambered out of a window and fled.

Mrs Russell said: ‘I probably let it be quiet for a few seconds and then got up and had a look round and they were gone. It felt like forever. I didn’t know what to do.

‘I remember creeping to the back windows in case anyone jumped out again. The castle manager came along and said ‘What happened?’ and I was blabbering and she ran back to raise the alarm.’

Mrs Russell recalled another member of staff coming to comfort her. She said: ‘She was walking me back down to the front of castle and I don’t think I actually said anything and she said, ‘It’s OK to cry’ and I just burst into tears.’

Shortly afterwards, the police arrived. She said: ‘It was just a lot of waiting about and police doing interviews and taking swabs and all that to try to get DNA and they took all my clothes.

 Robbie Graham, pictured, and his friend John Doyle, have told the tale of how they ended up becoming involved in the retrieval of the £30m da Vinci masterpiece 

Richard Dalkeith (second right), son of the Duke of Buccleuch, talks to police outside the Duke’s Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland, where a Leonardo da Vinci painting, Madonna with the Yarnwinder, was stolen

‘I had to phone my mum to get her to bring me a change of clothes.

‘Even speaking to my mum on the phone I was not wanting to panic her, so I was playing it down. ‘There’s been a theft at the castle so…’ and she told me afterwards it wasn’t until she was in the car and heard on the radio that it was actually a very big deal and she was in bit of a panic after that. I still don’t even really feel it actually happened. It feels like a dream.’

It didn’t take long for police to discover the white Golf GTi the thieves had used as getaway car, abandoned and empty. But after that, the trail went cold. Even after the Madonna was added to the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ list of stolen art, the whereabouts of the Da Vinci work remained a mystery.

For John Scott, the 9th Duke of Buccleuch, the theft of an artwork that had been in his family for more than 200 years was devastating, leaving the 79-year-old ‘distressed and disgusted’. The movements of the Madonna in the intervening years are unclear, but it is understood the stolen painting changed hands within the criminal underworld before being used as part-payment for a house.

In 2007, John Doyle, a private detective from Liverpool, was approached by a pool player in a local pub about a high-value picture which could be obtained through a go-between – at a price.

Mr Doyle and his business partner Mr Graham had founded Stolen Stuff Reunited, a company aimed at returning items to their owners for a reward or finder’s fee.

Tour guide Alison Russell witnessed the Da Vinci robbery

Private investigators Robbie Graham and Jack Doyle who recovered a stolen Leonardo Da Vinci painting ‘Madonna of the Yarnwinder’ from Drumlanrig castle, Dumfries

Together they imagined the blaze of publicity for their business if they returned a stolen Da Vinci. After taking a lawyer into their confidence, the group scraped together £350,000 – bundled into black bags – to buy the painting, from an unknown seller, in the car park of a Merseyside pub.

They then contacted the loss adjuster working for the painting’s insurers to try to broker a deal to return the painting. Unsurprisingly, the loss adjuster immediately called the police. An undercover officer was appointed to take over as a point of contact and, posing as the Duke of Buccleuch’s representative, the officer agreed to pay a ‘reward’ of £4.25 million.

A meeting was arranged at the offices of a Glasgow law firm. On the way north to deliver the painting, Mr Graham stopped at a hotel near Dumfries – where he posed for a photo with the Madonna.

The next day the handover went ahead in Glasgow. But just as the two private investigators and their legal advisers were expecting to be given their reward, 14 officers burst in and arrested them.

The return of the painting, welcomed by the Buccleuch family, came too late, however, for the elderly Duke, who had died just a month earlier.

Mr Doyle and Mr Graham later found themselves in court, accused of extortion, with the case hinging on whether the undercover police officer had infiltrated an existing conspiracy or, by offering a reward, had led them into a trap.

In 2010, at the end of an eight-week trial, they were cleared.

READ MORE: Four men charged with £50m Da Vinci masterpiece theft appear in court

In the new podcast Mr Graham’s daughter broadcasts the secret recording he made of a meeting between himself and the undercover officer.

In the so-called Euston Tape, Mr Graham can be heard telling the man he believes is the Duke’s representative that he would be willing, if asked, to go to the police with the stolen painting.

Ultimately it was this that persuaded a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh that Mr Graham was not trying to extort money.

Last night, Ms Graham, 35, explained how making the podcast had convinced her that not only was her father innocent, but that he deserved a reward for his part in returning the Da Vinci.

She said: ‘This was the first time I’d heard the Euston Tape that helped him and it was so interesting to look at old court documents and speak to people close to my dad who knew him at the time.

‘My dad passed away from cancer ten years ago so it was a really emotional journey for me and there was a lot to process.

‘The story of the missing Madonna and my dad’s involvement has so many twists and turns. People double crossed him and I don’t remember my dad getting any apologies from anyone.

‘I’d love to get the reward money due to my dad but you are going up against very big institutions. I think if my dad hadn’t got sick he would have gone for it. By telling this story it was great to help people see my dad in a different light.’

• A teaser episode of The Missing Madonna is on BBC Sounds – and the full series will be available from Friday

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