Two men have appeared before Newton Aycliffe magistrates charged with conspiracy to convert criminal property and possession of criminal property between September 2018 and May 2019. This is in connection with the reported seizure of a large number of coins and a silver ingot from properties in County Durham and Lancashire in 2019. Craig Best, 44, of South View, Bishop Auckland and Roger Pilling, 73, of Goodshaw Avenue North, Loveclough, entered no pleas and will next appear at Durham Crown Court on Tuesday, October 5. Hopefully more information will be made available then.
It has been suggested on the metal detecting forums that this arrest was connected with the illegal dispersal of the Leominster Hoard. That was discovered by Treasure hunters George Powell and Layton Davies in early June 2015. They decided not to report the find and therefore almost immediately afterwards they got coin dealer Paul Wells involved in the affair, and then antiquities dealer Simon Wicks from East Sussex, who two weeks after the find presented himself at upmarket coin auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb in Mayfair, central London. As Steven Morris puts it:
"Meanwhile, whispers that Powell and Davies had struck gold had begun to circulate and on 6 July – 33 days after their discovery – the Herefordshire finds liaison officer, Peter Reavill, contacted Powell and Davies and gently asked if they had anything to tell him about. Powell initially replied with a firm denial but they eventually handed over the gold jewellery and an ingot. However, they insisted they had only found a couple of damaged coins that they did not need to declare. But the net was closing in. Police visited Wells’ house and he showed them five coins from the hoard [...] [so far,] only 30 of the Herefordshire coins out of an estimated 300 have been recovered, the [...] police hunt for these precious pieces of English history goes on".We will see what emerges in court.
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