Herefordshire Viking hoard thieves must repay £600k

Two men found guilty of stealing a £3m Viking hoard have been ordered to pay more than £600,000 each or spend five more years in jail.

George Powell and Layton Davies were jailed in 2019 for not declaring their find of coins and jewellery in a field in Herefordshire four years earlier.

Judge Nicholas Cartwright told the men he believed about 270 coins are still being deliberately hidden by them.

They must pay the money within three months or spend more time in jail.

The hoard, found in a field in Eye, near Leominster, included a 9th Century gold ring, a crystal rock pendant, a dragon's head bracelet and an ingot which have since been recovered.

Thirty coins, which have also been recovered, had a previous estimated worth of between £10,000 and £50,000, but at a proceeds of crime hearing at Worcester Crown Court, the judge said they had been valued by the British Museum at £501,000.

The remaining 270 coins were valued at the lowest of £10,000 each. Mr Cartwright reduced the estimate by 10% to account for any possible damage, giving a value for the missing coins of £2.4m.

The value of the returned jewellery was put at £275,000, the court heard.

The men, who sold items they found to dealers, were convicted of theft and concealing their find, with Powell, 38, of Newport, jailed for 10 years and Davies, of Pontypridd, 51, for eight-and-a-half.

Coin seller Simon Wicks, 56, was also convicted on the concealment charge and jailed for five years.

Photographs on Davies' mobile phone - later deleted, but recovered by police investigators - showed the larger hoard, still intact, in a freshly-dug hole.

The Saxon coins are believed to have been hidden by a Viking, experts said, and provide fresh information about the unification of England and show there was an alliance previously not thought to exist between the kings of Mercia and Wessex.

When the men were sentenced, the judge said that if they had obtained the correct permission they would have gone on to receive up to half the £3m value of the hoard between them.

He said he rejected their accounts that the items were with other people and an auction house in Austria and said the men deliberately stole items.

"They acted together dishonestly. They jointly stole the items and jointly intended to split and sell the bracelet," Judge Cartwright said.

Davies was ordered to pay £603,180 and Powell £601,250.

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