Wednesday, 29 January 2025

Warrant Issued for Arrest of Thieving Metal Detectorist on the Run.


      Powell in 2019        

A warrant has just been issued for the arrest of a man found guilty of stealing a Viking hoard of 300  silver coins and gold items worth £3 million that he found in a field in Eye, near Leominster, Herefordshire. Instead of declaring the treasure, as required by law, Powell, a former warehouse worker from Newport, Wales (together with fellow defendant Layton Davies, a school caretaker of Pontypridd), sold some of the finds to dealers and probably concealed the rest. Only 31 of the coins were recovered. Powell also only handed over to the owner of the land three of the coins he found that were "not particularly valuable". 

They were both found guilty of theft, conspiring to conceal criminal property, and converting criminal property by selling it in 2019 and sentenced to jail. Now there has been a further development (Nicola Goodwin, 'Warrant issued for Viking hoard thief ' BBC News 28th Jan 2025).
Metal detectorist George Powell, from Newport, failed to appear at Birmingham Magistrates Court on 8 January. He was due to have been sentenced for failing to repay £600,000, the money a judge had earlier decided was his share of the missing coins and jewellery.

Powell was initially sentenced to 10 years in prison, but this was later reduced to six and a half years on appeal. Davies was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, later reduced to five years on appeal. 

In 2022, both George Powell and Layton Davies appeared at Worcester Crown Court. Judge Nicholas Cartwright told the men he believed about 270 coins were still being deliberately hidden by them. They were given a confiscation order and each told to repay £600,000 or go back to jail. George Powell appealed against that order, but his attempts to stay out of prison were rejected twice by an appeal judge and also the Court of Appeal in London. He was due to be sentenced at Birmingham Magistrates Court in January [this year], but he failed to appear, so a warrant was issued for his arrest. 

His fellow detectorist, 56-year old Layton Davies had already been sentenced to a further five years and three months in prison after failing to pay back the £603,180 that he is believed to have made from selling the stolen treasures.

In May 2023, two further men, Craig Best, from County Durham, and Roger Pilling, from Lancashire, were each jailed for five years and two months after trying to sell 44 rare Anglo-Saxon coins worth £766,000. The coins were thought to be part of the hoard uncovered in Herefordshire by George Powell and Layton Davies. The rest of the hoard is still missing.

Hereford Museum raised £776,250 to buy the fragment of the hoard that has been recovered (jewellery, an ingot, and 29 coins) from the owner of the field where they were found.



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