How the incredible story of a stolen Da Vinci and its Scouse links became a huge true crime hit

It sounds like something from a Guy Ritchie film plot – Scouse pub landlord tries to reunite a stolen Da Vinci masterpiece with its aristocratic owner.

But it’s very much a real life story for Olivia Graham who not experienced it, she made a podcast series, The Missing Madonna, telling the truth behind it.

That nine-episode series been such a huge success, reaching number 2 in the true crime charts and downloaded more than 1.4 million times, that it’s about to be aired on Radio 4 from this Saturday.

The landlord at the centre of everything, Robbie Graham, was Olivia’s dad so she’s been able to bring a uniquely personal perspective to the incredible string of events.

“I was involved in a lot of it, I went to the court cases, but I first heard about it in one of my dad’s pub car parks in Liverpool,” she says.

“I think when it was happening it felt more normal, but making the podcast I could process the gravitas of it and how mad it was. There were so many twists and turns, even though I lived through it I never fully understood it at the time.”

The story begins back in 2003 with an audacious art theft – two men, on the first tour of the day at Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland, the home of the Duke of Buccleuch, managed to prise the Madonna of the Yarnwinder off the wall and make their getaway in a waiting car.

The painting, worth an estimated £40milion, went missing for four years and it wasn’t until 2007 that Robbie Graham became involved.

Olivia explained:

“Two men in Liverpool, one of them my dad, had set up this private investigation firm and a website called Stolen Stuff Reunited which was designed to try and get things back to people who’d had them stolen; things that had emotional value,”

“They’d been running that for a few years and my dad also ran four pubs in north Liverpool. One day someone came in to one of his pubs and said, ‘I know someone who knows someone who knows where that Da Vinci painting is, could you help us get it back to Scotland?’

“The PIs were interested, but they wanted to make sure they could do it lawfully and the things went from there.”

After a highly complex process, the painting was returned 15 years ago and is currently on display in Edinburgh.

It’s a conclusion that’s revealed in the podcast series but, says Olivia, ithe how and why are what listeners have found fascinating.

Robbie died about five years after the court case, and it wasn’t until 2022 that Olivia, now 35, was contacted by BBC Scotland about telling the story via BBC Sounds.

“My dad had really wanted to get it made into a film – there were no podcasts then – but when it happened, because he was a Scouser, he got a hard time in the press.

“Afterwards we let the dust settle, life went on, until in November 2022 I got an email from BBC Scotland saying they wanted to make a podcast about the theft and they wanted to talk to me.

“I didn’t want anyone to do what they did the first time, to put my dad in the wrong when actually he always made sure everything he did was legal.

“I really wanted to tell it properly, so we discussed it and the BBC asked me to be a producer and narrator so they could tell it from my dad’s perspective.”

The Missing Madonna podcast series came out in August last year and got fantastic reviews and download figures.

Olivia, who lives in south Liverpool, says the response has been unbelievable. So much so that it will go out on Radio 4 on Saturdays, starting on August 3.

“I made it with defending my dad in mind but really with the intention of telling a good story and making people laugh, as if you’d been in a pub with me or my dad telling it.

“This is a story about someone who did something because he believed it was right and even when all the institutions turned against him, he still managed to do the right thing.

“It’s a gift as a daughter to be able to tell this story but it’s also telling a Scouse story, hearing Scouse voices, on Radio 4 and that’s one of the biggest things for me.”