Metal detectors’ request to reduce penalties rejected by the Court of Appeal

Two metal detectorists who planned to “erase history” by illegally selling Anglo-Saxon coins made bids to reduce their sentences, which were rejected by the Court of Appeal.

Roger Pilling, 76, and Craig Best, 48, were found guilty of conspiring to sell 44 ninth-century coins worth £766,000 and were sentenced to five years and two months in prison at Durham Crown Court in May 2023.

Never declared treasure, the coins were believed to have been buried by a Viking and included two extremely rare examples of two-headed coins; It showed Alfred of Wessex and Ceolwulf, who was discredited by Saxon writers as a Viking puppet ruler.

Two men tried to sell the coins, described by a judge as being of “great historical and cultural value” to the UK, to an undercover police officer who they believed was a US buyer but was actually an undercover police officer.

However, at the end of the hearing in London, three judges rejected the appeal proposals; Mr Justice Murray stated that the plan was an “attempt to erase history” and, if successful, would “significantly dilute the common history of the nation”.

Best, formerly Bishop Auckland of Durham Region, was arrested with three coins at a Durham hotel during a police operation in May 2019.

He was detained after meeting a man he believed to be a metals expert employed by a broker working for a wealthy US-based buyer, but who was actually undercover.

Pilling was arrested at his home in Loveclough, Lancashire, and a further 41 coins were seized.

It is estimated that the coins were made between 874 AD and 879 AD.

The sentencing judge found the 44 coins were part of a larger, undeclared find known as the Herefordshire or Leominster Hoard, which was discovered in 2015 and was worth millions of pounds but was still undeclared.

On Wednesday the Court of Appeal heard Pilling asked Best to help him sell the coins.

Chris Morrison, representing Best, said his client was “approached” by Pilling to sell the products and became the “de facto agent in the sale”.

He said: “I accept immediately that this was serious misconduct and it is clear that the court viewed it as such.

“But in my view, when the matter is considered, I believe the sentence against my client may be too high.”

The court heard Pilling’s claim that “mitigation, age, state of health and trustworthiness of his partner were adequately taken into account” was not taken into account when sentencing.

Dismissing the appeal bids, Justice Murray, sitting with Lord Justice William Davis and Justice Shaun Smith KC, said the pair “conspired to sell the coins” on the black market to buyers in the US because they “knew about the coins”. “It could not be safely sold to a legitimate dealer in the UK”.

The judge added that the three coins Best and Pilling planned to sell contained “a coin that rewrote the history of King Alfred and the little-known King of Mercia” and that trying to sell the coins abroad “means history is likely to be erased”. It is lost forever to the nation.”