Warrant issued for Viking hoard thief

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a man found guilty of stealing a Viking hoard of gold worth £3 million.

Metal detectorist George Powell, from Newport, failed to appear at Birmingham Magistrates Court on 8 January.

He was due to have been sentenced for failing to repay £600,000, the money a judge had earlier decided was his share of the missing coins and jewellery.

His fellow detectorist, Layton Davies, from Pontypridd, is serving an extra five years and three months in prison for failing to pay his share.

In 2015, George Powell and Layton Davies uncovered 300 coins and gold jewellery in a field in Eye, near Leominster, Herefordshire.

Instead of declaring the treasure, as required by law, they sold the valuables to dealers.

In 2019, they were both found guilty of theft, conspiring to conceal criminal property, and converting criminal property by selling it.

George Powell was sentenced to 10 years in prison, later reduced to six and a half years on appeal.

Layton Davies was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, later reduced to five years on appeal.

At the time of the trial, just 31 of the estimated 300 coins that they found had been recovered.

Experts believed the coins were Anglo-Saxon and to have been hidden by a Viking.

One of them was a double-headed coin, showing two rulers of England. Alfred the Great, who ruled Wessex, and Ceolwulf II of Mercia.

Historians said this showed there was an alliance previously not thought to exist between the kings, changing what we know about the unification of England.

The hoard also included a 9th-century gold ring, a crystal rock pendant, a dragon's head bracelet and an ingot.

At the trial, the judge told the men they were guilty of stealing the nation's history.

In 2022, both George Powell and Layton Davies appeared at Worcester Crown Court.

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

They were given a confiscation order and each told to repay £600,000 or go back to jail.

George Powell appealed against that order, but his attempts to stay out of prison were rejected twice by an appeal judge and also the Court of Appeal in London.

He was due to be sentenced at Birmingham Magistrates Court in January, but he failed to appear, so a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Hereford Museum raised £776,250 to buy the jewellery, the ingot, and 29 coins from the owner of the field where they were found.

The Museum and Art Gallery is undergoing a £22 million refurbishment and is due to reopen with a purpose-built space where the coins and jewellery will be on permanent display.

In May 2023, two further men, Craig Best, from County Durham, and Roger Pilling, from Lancashire, were each jailed for five years and two months after trying to sell 44 rare Anglo-Saxon coins worth £766,000.

The coins were thought to be part of the hoard uncovered in Herefordshire by George Powell and Layton Davies.

The rest of the hoard is still missing.