Some Clarity on the Reasons for Secrecy Surrounding Contentious Record in Public-Funded Database

I was looking up something the other day when something unrelated to it caught my eye. Serendipity. I wish now I'd put two and two together when I was one of those trying to puzzle out the real story behind the PAS recording an item on their database when it was actually at the time in the Hansons' saleroom. Apart from a series of posts on this blog, David Gill and I wrote an article on it (Gill, David W J, Barford, Paul (2022) A Harness Fitting from Buckinghamshire on the UK Market. Journal of Art Crime, 27 . pp. 17-30. ISSN 1947-5934). There is also an important text by Andy Brockman (Antiques Woad Show: Auctioneer sells rare Iron Age Brooch Which [Almost] Wasn't Reported to the PAS The Pipeline February 25, 2021)

One of the most puzzling features was that it was entered onto the PAS database [DENO-2BAD49] by one Michell Ray,  (yeah, PAS have hidden that information, but there is a way round their obscurantism) on a "Sunday, 21st February 2021". I was concerned to find out more, but: Ms Ray's supervisor, FLO  Meghan King; the head of the PAS, Professor Mike  Lewis; the director of the Derby museum where the FLO is based, Tony Butler; and several other people involved, all failed to answer some pretty basic questions about the events surrounding the creation of this record by this individual attached to the PAS. All very odd, after all, what is there to hide? Why was this record made on a Sunday, out of the blue a few days before the auction, why was the official PAS record mainly compiled from the auction catalogue? What was also unexplained is why the PAS recorder had a fairly full set of the auctioneer's photos of the object that were mysteriously (with no acknowledgement of source) incorporated into the PAS database record ("Rights Holder: The Portable Antiquities Scheme"). Who had asked her and why? Was it her supervisor the FLO, Derby Museum, the British Museum - Dr Farley for example? That was never cleared up, and this raised not a few questions. Are the PAS and Derby Museums hiding something? 

?

The Facebook page of a metal detectorist holds a clue. The well-known detectorist Adam Staples knows a Michelle Ray, in fact they now seem to be a couple. Their acquaintance, if not relationship, goes back quite a while. On 1st September 2020 they were on a metal detecting rally together. In June 2021 they were on another rally, in Sudbury. At the end of 2021, they posted a Christmas greetings photo apparently as a couple.  The lady's Facebook page (links on Mr Staples') is additional evidence, and we can put a face to the name. It also confirms that she was/is a metal detectorist. So on a Sunday between  the above references,  Ms Ray created the record in the PAS database. She was sharing a memory on FB with Mr Staples just a week before the record was made. 

The problem with this is that Adam Staples was not just another metal detectorist and hoard finder. At the time this record was made, Mr Staples worked as a consultant for Hansons, the auction house selling the object in question. Adam Staples was the author of the Hansons catalogue entry, the text of which we may remember, was copied almost verbatim into the PAS database record. Now we have a better chance to understand the source of the record's photos. 

So is it in fact the case that the PAS record consists of a text passed onto it by virtue of the fact that PAS were allowing a metal detectorist free and unsupervised - on a Sunday - access to the database? That she used that opportunity to post there commercially useful material on behalf of her friend, or boyfriend, in the antiquities trade, one of those deeply involved in the sale? Could the Portable Antiquities Scheme and Derby Museums please enlighten us whether or not that is the case and this is why, in a blatant example of institutional lack of transparency)  they did not answer the earlier  perfectly justifiable questions? Do they do this sort of thing often, how are their volunteers vetted, and what steps are they taking to make sure nothing like this could ever happen? 

The PAS should by now have set up a system that protects them from any connection with Britain's antiquities trade. This cases calls into question how effective that has been.