UK Metal Detectorist Wants to Block This Blog

(Heritage Action)

Daniel R. Scott (southwestpaw), a newbie "metal detectorist" apparently from somewhere in the southwest of England discovered a post here that annoyed him because it mentioned his detecting mate and a muddy hole and he seems to feel his identity threatened by what I write about artefact hunting and collecting. Interestingly, he (says he) has legal qualifications:  "LLB(Hons) Dip. Legal Practice". 

As a result, he's recently been trolling this blog with increasing numbers of fatuous comments and getting very agitated and accusatory. Most of this comment-overload I rejected on the principles set out here. Just now I had another in which he goes on about how much money generated by his hobby he has given to "charity" (he's even posted a receipt for his 20 quid on Twitter!) and for him how obvious it is that my concerns for the archaeological record are born out of "hatred" for "people like [him]". But in amongst all the hate-speech addressed to me that he himself spews out, he also wrote:

I will not rest until this blog becomes digital archaeology

Well, since Britain has now left the EU, not by any means involving European law, eh? I'm here and he's there.

Of course he could do what one of this "mates" did and contact some metal detectorists in Poland to help out - like one of his British colleagues informed me he'd done which suspiciously coincided with an attack on a member of my family outside our home (repeatedly doxxed by several of them too). Or he could do what another did and send some dog's poo in a box to what he thought was my Warsaw address (actually it was our old address which at the time was rented out to a police officer). Then there would be the time another metal detectorist sent me a series of threatening emails several times a day and night because I'd written about the mess he'd made of digging up some bronze vessels from below plough level. Or there was the time another one sent me a series of mails pretending he was coming to beat me up and proceeded one day to post views from an aircraft window landing at Warsaw airport and then a series of texts every few minutes detailing where he was and how he was getting closer ... (but of course the photo was from Google). There was Deep Digger Dan and his threats because I criticised here some of his videos. Then there was Mr Chetwynd.. a case on his own. And of course let us not forget the foul-mouthed John Howland who has built his life around attacking Paul Barford and Nigel Swift and archaeologists every few days - now on his "Detecting and Collecting" website that gives such a good insight into the inbuilt prejudices of the mindset of some detectorists.

These are just a few of the many, many metal detectorists (ancient coin collectors have been no better) that have tried to put me off thinking what I think, and writing what I see happening. Daniel Scott thinks he's better than them, and better than me. We will see. 

But of course this kind of behaviour does not reflect at all well on the metal detecting community. And even if the blog goes, the problems that it highlights will not disappear, and those who despoil the archaeological record for collectables in the UK will not always enjoy the protection that having a PAS currently affords them.