Here's one the culprit may have wanted to keep quiet at the library – a book that should have been returned 48 years ago.
It would have racked up roughly £4,000 in fines.
Luckily, it was returned during an amnesty after council bosses appealed for overdue library books to be given back.
The copy of children’s book Havelok the Warrior by Ian Serraillier was taken out by a teenager in Hastings, East Sussex, in 1975.
County councillor Claire Dowling said: “It’s wonderful to see these books returned to our libraries, and I would like to thank our residents for searching out any overdue items and for taking the time to return them to us.”
Havelok the Warrior, first published in 1967, is about an exiled warrior prince who fought to regain his throne to become king of Denmark and England.
The author Ian, died in 1994, at the age of 82.
His book The Silver Sword (1956), a wartime adventure story that the BBC adapted for television in 1957 and again in 1971.
Fines were waived for anyone who brought back any of the more than 750 books still not returned to East Sussex’s libraries during this period.
