Men Armed with Metal Detectors Planned to 'Delete History' For Cash: Appeal Dismissed.

Two men jailed over trying clandestinely to dispose of items from a hoard of Viking treasure have failed in a bid to have their sentences reduced ( Paul Britton

'Armed with metal detectors, they planned to 'delete history'...' Manchester Evening News).

Two metal detectorists [...] who planned to 'delete history' by illegally selling Anglo-Saxon coins have had bids to reduce their sentences dismissed by the Court of Appeal. Roger Pilling, 76, and Craig Best, 48, were convicted of conspiring to sell 44 ninth-century coins worth £766,000 and jailed for five years and two months at Durham Crown Court in May, 2023.[...] The two men attempted to sell the coins [...] to someone they believed was a US buyer but who was in fact an undercover police officer. [...] Best, previously of Bishop Auckland, County Durham, was arrested with three coins at a Durham hotel in May 2019 in a police sting operation. [...] Pilling was arrested at his home in Loveclough, Rossendale, Lancashire, with a further 41 coins seized.[...] The sentencing judge found that the 44 coins were part of a larger, undeclared find known as the Herefordshire or Leominster Hoard, which was discovered in 2015 and is worth millions of pounds, but which was also not declared.