A rogue metal detectorist jailed for stealing a Viking hoard worth up to £5.2million has told a court that he gambled away money he made from the treasure.
Warehouseman George Powell, 40, spoke for the first time about how he failed to declare the rare coins and jewellery that had been buried for over 1,100 years.
Powell admitted he had wanted to become rich and to “get the payout” only for his greed to end in his downfall.
Images published for the first time today showing him and fellow detectorist Layton Davies, 54, holding the treasure provided the evidence that jailed them.
Worcester Crown Court heard there may have been up to 300 coins - with a value of up to £5, 285,250 - buried at the farm near Leominster, Herefordshire, where they unearthed the hoard in June 2015. Only 31 coins and some of the jewellery were recovered.
Giving evidence last week at a proceeds to crime hearing, Powell claimed he only found 51 coins and sold the unrecovered 20 for just £10,000.
He said of the money: “I gambled it away. I’ve got a bit of a naughty habit.”
Davies knew nothing about him selling any of the coins, he said.
Powell, from Newport, South Wales, said he sold 20 coins to bent dealer Simon Wicks who he met at service stations on the M4 and was later jailed for five years for concealment.
Powell, who was jailed for six and a half years, said: “We are metal detectorists, you want to become rich to get the payout, it’s a treasure hunting hobby.”
Asked why he had changed his mind and decided to give evidence for the first time, he said: “I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ve lost my partner, I’m in prison.
“Your honour and the public deserve the right to know the truth. I think prison has made the best of me. It’s made me realise what I’ve done wrong.
It needs to be told.
“People can change their mind can’t they? A lot can happen over a cup of tea can’t it?”
School technician Davies, a grandfather from Pontypridd, was said to have told Powell to hand in the treasure and had himself previously declared 100 finds.
Asked if he felt guilty his friend was facing more jail time, Powell said:
“I do feel partially, but it’s his choice, he’s a grown man. If he didn’t want to be there, he didn’t have to be there.”
Davies, who was jailed for five years for theft and concealment, told the court it was a case of him being in the “wrong place at the wrong time”.
He told his barrister Terence Woods: “I wasn’t involved in anything to do with the coins or passing them on.”
Powell said he didn’t declare the find because the farmer he had sought permission to search from had said Lord Cawley was the owner of the land..
He said: “We thought there would be no gain from what there was. We were thinking about the money.”
The court heard that if the men had declared it, as the law stipulates, they would have pocketed hundreds of thousands.
Powell said: “”That’s what I have to live with every day.”
Asked by Judge Nicholas Cartwright why he didn’t declare it, Powell said:
“I got a bit greedy at that time Your Honour.”
He added: “I can’t dwell on the past, there are lots of ifs and buts.”
By law a treasure must be declared and if it is later sold the money is shared equally between the finder and the landowner.
The hoard included a 9th Century chunky gold ring, a dragon’s head arm bracelet, at least one silver ingot and a small crystal rock pendant held in thin strips of gold dating to the 5th or 6th century.
Among the silver coins were the extremely rare “two emperors” depicting King Alfred of Wessex and Ceolwulf II of Mercia.
They are historically important because they reveal how the two kingdoms were coming together in the early stages of the formation of England.
The hoard was probably hidden by a Viking soldier who had retreated into the kingdom of Mercia after being defeated by Alfred the Great in 878, a period recently brought to life by the Netflix series The Last Kingdom.
The most conservative valuation of the total find is £2.7million,
prosecutor Simon Phillips told the court.
The items are now on display at Hereford Museum Resource and Learning Centre after it was purchased for £776,250.
Powell said he had been searching the area for a few hours when he discovered the hoard.
He said fragments of wood, perhaps the remains of a box, lay on the treasure.
“The coins were on the bottom, the gold was on the top,” he said.
Powell claimed archeologists searching the area after the find have been looking in the wrong place.
He said: “I can tell the police where it was, you never know there might be more there. I can take them to the last blade of grass.”
Judge Cartwright is due to hand down his proceeds of crime ruling at the same court next month when the men could face further jail time.
