"Responsible Detectingists" and the Fifty-Shifty Finds Contract

It’s all a matter
of trust my friend,
Purely a matter of trust,
And I know you’ll agree
with me my friend,
That mutual trust is a must.

 (A fifty-shifty detectorist quoted by Steve Broom)

Unbelievable, Nigel Swift writes (see Update) that he'd just received another of those ubiquitous tekkie sock-puppet comment which suggests that since Heritage Action had been "banging this drum" about the treatment landowners get from artefact hunters repeatedly for years, he should now stop. His answer to this was straightforward: 

yesterday we reckon about 790 recordable artefacts were dug up but most of them weren’t reported to PAS (according to PAS’s statistics) and most of them weren’t shown to the owner (according to the wording of the Finds Agreements). The same happened on each of thousands of previous days and will apply on each of an unknown number of future days. So my attitude is simple. When detectorists cease to act in an uncivilised way I will immediately stop pointing out that they are doing so. That’s not unreasonable is it?

Indeed it is not. Not at all.  It is just a shame that only a few people seem to bother. In the world of "heritage" in Britain, most jobsworths shrug their shoulders and turn away. Over on a "responsible" metal detectorist's blog (Steve Broom, " Its a matter of trust...deal with it...!!! ")  the point made by Heritage Action has - without really examining the question, one suspects, been labelled “inaccurate”.

Trouble is, it’s not. Taking someone’s property home unseen and unchecked by them to Liverpool or Latvia on any pretext or none is plain wrong by any standard. And doing it on the basis that “trust” is essential” is pure nonsense when both a crook and a cad would use the same wording so the wording leaves him open to being swindled.  Some things are just wrong. 

Then we have the pathetic tekkie barstool pseudo-legal argument that, allegedly as "lost property", all non Treasure artefact finds belong only to the finder who since the original owner is untraceable, can do with them as he wishes.  Are farmers aware of this element of the current debate?

Getting through the ingrained attitudes of entitlement evidenced by both these recent insertions into the debate and which seem to infest the metal detecting world seems an enormous problem, which is probably why for seventeen barren years, the PAS has not lifted a finger to deal with it. Neither have (so-called) responsible detectorists.