The wheels grind on so slowly. The time between infringement and consequence in the UK are too long. Anyway, four years after suspicions were raised (e.g., That's a Funny State to be in! How Did That Happen? PACHI Monday, 16 May 2022), a Lincolnshire man who fabricated the discovery of what was claimed to be an 1,800-year-old Roman artefact has walked free from court after receiving a suspended prison sentence (Bill Bowkett, 'Treasure hunter who claimed eBay purchase was 1,800-year-old Roman brooch dodges prison ', MSN 9th Jan 2026).
Jason Price, 54, from Grantham, was given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years at Lincoln Crown Court yesterday after pleading guilty to four counts of fraud by false representation. He was also ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work, pay £1,000 in court costs and £3,250 in compensation to Lincolnshire County Council. The £5,000 he [and the landowner?] received for the artefact has been repaid.
The court heard that Price, a funeral director, metal detectorist and Royal Navy veteran, falsely claimed to have discovered a copper-alloy horse figurine during a Detecting for Veterans charity event in 2019. Price told journalists at the time that he was “shaking” when he uncovered the object, which he claimed had been buried eight inches deep in a heavily ploughed field near Leasingham. “My jaw fell,” he said. He later admitted that he had in fact bought the object on eBay.
The item, dubbed the “Leasingham Horse Brooch”, was initially celebrated as a major archaeological find and recorded as the first three-dimensional horse brooch on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database, dated to between AD 43 and 410. It was displayed at The Collection Museum in Lincoln and featured on the television programme Great British History Hunters.
Suspicion arose in February 2023 when Price continued submitting artefacts from another site at Long Bennington [no, Mr Bowkett, suspicion arose when Paul Barford and others noted earlier that the object looks like a Bulgarian fake and this is one of a number of potential out-of-place artefacts the PAS is full of]. Following testing by Historic England in February 2024, the brooch was found to be no earlier than the 16th century. Prosecutor Declan Austin told the court that investigators believed Price had “seeded” items on sites and that more than 150 hours were spent assessing the large number of submissions he had made [we are not told how many items that were formerly recorded on the PAS database were deleted as a result].
In an impact statement, Dr Lisa Brundle, Finds Liaison Officer at Lincolnshire County Council who had recorded the piece (in a record of some length) in the first place, described the case as a “betrayal” that had undermined trust and diverted resources from legitimate archaeological work. Poor lady, deceived by a tekkie. It is quite clear that the PAS is on many occasions FAILING to verify material brought in by artefact hunter/collectors by even such basic means as checking whether EACH find is accompanied by a signed release form by the landowner confirming that the items was taken from their land with their agrerement and knowledge - to help avoid the PAS handling clandestinely-excavated and stolen material. Obviously instead of verifying the origin (and authenticity) of the find, Ms Brundle "trusted" that the person claiming to be the finder was telling the truth. The number of danubian finds and coins (and those from further afield) in the "database" suggests that not all of these people were telling the truth and the gullible FLO recorded a whole lot of dubious material as British finds (I am doing a book chaptder on this in 2026).
Apparently, Will Mason, head of culture at Lincolnshire County Council, said: “It’s incredibly sad and disappointing that anyone would choose to exploit Lincolnshire’s rich heritage in this way.” Apparently he has no real problem with individual collectors ripping up the archaeological record for personal gain and entertainment. With attitudes like that in the British heritage community as a whole, one might very well follow that with the sentiment "what can anyone do?"
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