Detectorists who stole £3m worth of buried treasure ordered to repay £1.2m in three months

George Powell and Layton Davies were jailed for more than 18 years after failing to report their find and handing over just three ‘valueless’ coins out of a 1,100-year-old collection from the reign of King Alfred

Two metal detectorists who stole a £3 million hoard of Anglo-Saxon buried treasure have been ordered to repay £1.2 million between them ‘immediately’.

George Powell, 41, and Layton Davies, 54, were found guilty of theft, conspiracy to conceal criminal property and conspiracy to convert criminal property in November 2019.

They have now been told they must pay back over £600,000 each, according to a confiscation Order was made last Wednesday (21/12) at Worcester Crown Court.

The pair were jailed for more than 18 years after failing to report their find and handed over just three ‘valueless’ coins - out of a 1,100-year-old collection from the reign of King Alfred - that ‘rewrote history’.

The pair stumbled upon the collection of coins, jewellery and silver ingots buried at Eye Court Farm, near Leominster, Herefordshire, in the spring of 2015.

They ‘clumsily’ dug up the hoard and failed to disclose the extent of their discovery, which is a requirement under the Treasure Act 1996.

Powell, a warehouse worker from Newport, South Wales, was jailed for six-and-a-half years.

Davies, a school caretaker from Pontypridd, was jailed or five years.

They must now repay £601,250 and £603,180 respectively within three months, giving them until March 21, 2023.

If they fail to pay the bill on time, they can expect an additional five years and four months of jail time on top of their existing 18 year sentence.

The convictions followed a lengthy investigation by West Mercia Police into reports from the metal detecting community and the British Museum of an unreported large treasure find in 2015.

The pair, along with accomplices Paul Wells, 60, and Simon Wicks, 57, had not told the owner of the farmland of their discovery when they found the treasure trove.

(Adam Hughes / SWNS)

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They went on to sell several items on the black market, raising enormous sums of money in what Judge Nicholas Cartwright described as a “greedy and selfish” act.

Only 31 of the coins - worth between £10,000 and £50,000 - and pieces of jewellery have ever been recovered, with the majority of the hoard still missing.

At their 2019 conviction, Judge Cartwright also noted that had the men pursued legal means of reporting the find, they could have stood to gain half a million each.

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Superintendent Edd Williams, local policing commander for Herefordshire, said: “I’m delighted with today’s result, which brings closure to an investigation which we have been working on for seven years.

“The Confiscation Order, coupled with the sentences Powell and Davies received, send a strong and clear message that we take this sort of crime very seriously and will take action.

“It is a criminal offence to not declare finds of treasure to the local coroner’s office.

“I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank our partners, including Herefordshire County Council’s conservation and environment team and The British Museum, for their support in bringing this case to a successful conclusion.”