Detectorists sent to jail

https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-england-hereford-worcester-50516329

These guys got slammed …10 years !!

Bugger! I wonder what we would do? I know that if I had found them I would want to retain a few but at the same time would want to do the right thing…sort of.

If you do the right thing at least you get the value over there I understand but if I found a hoard and knew that IF I surrendered them I would get to keep a few then indeed I would surrender them but if I was not going to get a few then I have a faint suspicion that I would keep a few and declare the remainder after all the original owner is history and the idea that they have ‘cheated the public’ seems a bit strange to me considering that if they had not been found then the public would never be aware of them.

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i wonder how much is stashed away for a rainy day

But there’s no need or excuse to run off with it if the liaison system governing them gives you a good cut of it, such as in the UK. I read this a bit back and was surprised they bothered to throw it all away.

I agree with you but at the same time the money value means nothing to me so I am pretty sure that I would do the ‘right thing’ according to the law BUT keep a few prize pieces.
How far back does the law relating to treasure go? If you find something but keep a few items then could you claim that those items you kept belonged to Great great Uncle Pat who found them while ploughing back in 1912 and had been passed to you and were the items that stimulated you to go looking for more with your detector!

I guess it would depend on the museum but with a hoard like that I am pretty sure you could negotiate to buy a bit with your cut of it and ‘loan’ it to public display in a museum. Surely it is more of a bother upgrading your security system to store it at home. Win-win I think.

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Im with lammy , keep a little declare the rest , mind you perhaps they didn’t have permission to be detecting where they were , who knows but 10 years in the clink seems like an awful long time , maybe they crack and do a deal !!

While it looks like the Crown encourages people to use ethics (not trespass) the fact they had trespassed is not covered under the provisions of the Treasure Act so if they had defaced a known historic site, that’s bound to take from their lawful percentage but if they merely trespassed, that’s a petty civil suit that I don’t think I would bother with if someone came to my door as a land owner offering me my share of that, it is still odd that they didn’t act.

My error, it does mean they get nothing (page 39-40 of the above mentioned link)

I would comply with the law, which i think in NZ means reporting any find over 100 years to the local university archeology department ?
But i would be asking the archeologist for a job on the excavation.

Yeah, laws relevant to metal detecting are dotted around the place in NZ and in some ways the ability to find them all is a suitability test in itself.

I use the Walking Access Commission Maps because they give the land owner, parcel detail to provide to council and often state if the piece is subject to the reserves act and so on, before going, then if it is DOC governed and so on, I have been known to ask a ranger or two, even submit a hazard and risk assessment. I’ve got access to Property Guru so often write letters to landowners too. But after a couple of finds, you will get to know your local archaeologist. If you have a find and notify council, they will outsource to them to have it checked. Another way is to go through the regional coordinators via Archsite, as a council will always direct the matter to an NZAA member. With processed gold and in quantity, though it’s not likely, I’d be going to the land owner via police and they can decide if it needs a forensics or period archaeological specialist. The police are not in the unprocessed gold reporting loop but MBIE are and have the police on speed dial if it isn’t reported. I’ve never approached a university as not all universities have archaeology departments.

Of the two local sites I have co-found and the registered archaeologist has registered on Archsite, I have always been asked along for the initial assessment, this is where you learn a lot. Our legislation requires unregistered, even the brilliant but unregistered, persons are overseen by the qualified, and requires reporting on suspicion of age/value/import and so on. Neither of those two sites have been subject to a full excavation yet so your question just hasn’t come up, I imagine they all got busy with the new knowledge coming out of Transmission Gully.

I don’t know if you can do it on any sites here but you can apply to go and do fieldwork in your capacity, overseas, so that’s being overseen and operating within whatever the excavation team worked out with authorities.

“Cheated the public” is a bit of harsh. And a tenner in prison? The treasure would still be in the dirt and everyone would be none the wiser if these guys hadn’t swung a detector over it. Why should the government get a share? The only parts I take issue with is that a) they were trespassing, and b) the landowner didn’t get a cut.

The funny thing is that the land owner must be the one to bring about a civil action regarding trespass, which is really only a civil thing and unlikely to have eaten a great deal of their reward as there are very specific measures a UK landowner must take, including with their signage, for trespass to be deemed to have occurred, but don’t take that as a free license for your UK holiday, no harm in asking prior, you could even hack out a better deal than the law’s 50:50, I certainly would ask. I do think it is more that they on sold items and that the whole value is unknown, I’d say the landowner got a cut of what was recovered. I think the judge might mean lost knowledge and crown assets wise. It does seem a long sentence when the average for murder in the UK is 15 years served before parole, perhaps its about the sum involved, but people got sent to Australia for much less.

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your not kidding my about six time great grandfarther got live in the clink in sydney for stealing three bags of wheat,leaving wife and five kids in the woehouse,1844,never got back…

Here you go, even the Coroner is overseen by an archaeologist