Metal detectorist who stole a £3million Viking treasure hoard has his jail sentence extended after failing to pay back £670k
A metal detectorist who stole £3 million of Anglo-Saxon treasure has been given an extra five years in jail for failing to pay back profits from the hoard.
A metal detectorist who stole £3 million of Anglo-Saxon treasure has been given an extra five years in jail for failing to pay back profits from the hoard.
Layton Davies, 56, was sentenced to five years in 2019 for failing to declare an invaluable collection of buried treasure dating back 1,100 years to the reign of King Alfred the Great.
He and an accomplice had sold the haul of Viking and Anglo-Saxon coins and jewellery, which they had dug up on Herefordshire farmland in June 2015.
They included a ninth century gold ring, a dragons head bracelet, a silver ingot, a crystal rock pendant dating to the fifth century and up to 300 coins.
Experts believe the stolen treasures would help shed light on the little-understood alliances between the ancient kings of Mercia and Wessex.
Layton Davies (pictured) was sentenced to five years in 2019 for failing to declare an invaluable collection of buried treasure
Davies and an accomplice dug up treasure including a gold ring (pictured) on Hertfordshire farmland in 2015
The stolen haul included a gold bracelet featuring a dragons head (left) and a crystal ball pendant (right) from the fifth century
But only a small number of the coins have been recovered, although mobile phone photographs - later deleted, but recovered by police - showed the larger hoard, still intact, in a freshly dug hole.
Davies, formerly of Pontypridd, was found guilty of theft, conspiracy to conceal criminal property and conspiracy to convert criminal property.
He was later ordered by a judge to repay the £603,180 he made from selling the stolen treasures.
On Thursday, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said that Davies had been sentenced to a further five years and three months for failing to repay the sum.
Debbie Price, of the CPS, said: Greed led Layton Davies to ignore his duty to report the found treasure and instead sell it for his own benefit.
An experienced detectorist, Davies would have known he was entitled to half of the proceeds of legal sale of the treasure, instead choosing to deprive the landowner and public by stealing this exceptional and significant treasure.
This case shows that the CPS takes our duty to ensure crime doesnt pay seriously, Davies has failed to pay so we have taken him back to court and his additional default sentence means he now faces a further five years in prison.
The amount outstanding to be paid by Davies is said to be £600,006, but with an additional interest of £70,375.
He was convicted alongside his co-defendant George Powell, 43, who was jailed for six-and-a-half years in 2019.
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.
Powell claimed he passed the coins on to corrupt antiques dealer Simon Wicks who gave him the cash at a service station on the M4 motorway.
Wicks was found guilty of conspiracy to conceal criminal property and conspiracy to convert criminal property. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
Davies (pictured) failed to repay the sum and the CPS confirmed he has been sentenced to a further five years and three months in jail
His accomplice George Powell (pictured) was jailed for six-and-a-half years in 2019
Davies and Powell found the treasure and did not declare it - despite knowing of the law requiring them to do so
Around £3.2million worth of Anglo-Saxon treasure was found by the two men, including 300 coins. Some coins were dated back to the era of Alfred the Great
Powell claimed he passed the coins on to corrupt antiques dealer Simon Wicks (pictured) who gave him the cash at a service station on the M4 motorway
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 had not told the owner of the farmland of their discovery when they found the treasure trove.
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.
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.
