charged with stealing jewellery, rings and a mink fur coat with a total value of £2,500 from a premises in Queen Street, Mayfair, and £2,860 of jewellery from a property on Park Lane. He was refused bail, and imprisoned for three years. The recorder of the court observed: "The way of the amateur criminal is hard. But the way of the professional is disastrous". He later sold an article about his life and exploits to a newspaper. His father, who had led a respectable life, as had been the case for all the men of the Hervey family since the Victorian era, broke down in tears on hearing the sentence. Business dealings Prior to receiving his trust income, Victor Hervey declared bankruptcy in 1937 with debts of £123,955, (approximately £ today). He had been selling guns during the Spanish Civil War to both sides, hoping to receive £30,000 as a bribe which failed and led to the debts. He nevertheless continued in his arms-dealing activities and was Franco's principal agent for many years. Bristol went on to amass a fortune, both inherited and earned, estimated to be in excess of £50 million. In 1941, Victor Hervey claimed to have been listed in a secret document written by Heinrich Himmler as an enemy of the Third Reich, but there is no evidence that such a document ever existed. From 1951, he held the courtesy title of Earl Jermyn, by which name he was known until inheriting the Marquessate in 1960, when he became also Earl of Bristol and Baron Hervey of Ickworth in Suffolk, Hereditary High Steward of the Liberty of Bury St Edmunds, and patron of thirty Church of England benefices, with landed estates in Suffolk, Essex, Lincolnshire, and Dominica in the West Indies. In 1973, he was recorded as having a great many business interests, with estates in Suffolk, Lincolnshire and Essex. He was then Chairman of Sleaford Investments Limited, Eastern Caravan Parks Ltd., Estates Associates Ltd., Ickworth Forestry Contractors Ltd., Cyprus Enterprises Co., V.L.C. Associates Ltd., Marquis of Bristol & Co., The Bristol Publishing Company, Radio Maria Ickworth Automatic Sales Ltd., Bristol International Airways Ltd., Dominca Enterprises Co., World Liberty Plots and other companies. He owned the Ickworth Stud, Suffolk, and the Emerald Hillside Estates in Dominica. He was sometime President of the National Yacht Harbour Association, a member of the House of Lords Yacht Club, the Hurlingham