Tracked by His Own GPS Tag After Damien Hirst Studio Theft
A thief who raided Damien Hirst’s London studio was caught through his GPS ankle tag, leaving police a perfect digital trail.
He wore his own trail to prison. Liam Middleton-Gomm, 36, thought he could outsmart a security system and Damien Hirst at once — but forgot the GPS tag wrapped around his own ankle. According to the BBC, police didn’t need detectives or luck. They just followed the signal.
The thief smashed a window at Hirst’s Thames Wharf Studio in west London and took around £5,000 worth of goods — embroidered shirts, leather jackets, even a silver-skulled Dior pram. Then he walked straight into his own digital footprint. Every step recorded. Every minute timestamped.
Middleton-Gomm had done this before — 39 convictions deep, the kind of name police remember without checking notes. But this time, technology got there first. The GPS data told the whole story: the double visit, the stop at his father’s place in Fulham, the path of stolen art that ended at Kingston Crown Court. Thirty-two months in prison sealed the loop.
His father, Leslie, got a conditional discharge for handling the stolen goods — a quiet echo of the chaos his son carried.
Damien Hirst, who once preserved death in formaldehyde, doesn’t need to comment. The real exhibit is the irony: a burglar tracked by his own leash in a city where art, money, and crime always find a way to dance — but this time, the dance ended before it began.
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