For ages we’ve said Glasgow University should add a 5th type of “nighthawking” to their Encyclopaedia: “Having permission to detect but not revealing a find or misrepresenting its worth”. Now, the Sentencing Council’s new Guidelines on Theft Offences seem to suggests that’s true, for they identify:
3 relevant offences
1. “Going equipped for theft or burglary”
2. “Handling stolen property” and
3. “Making Off without Payment”
and 4 indicators of high culpability
1. “If the offender abuses a position of power or trust”
2. “Deliberately targets the victim on the basis of vulnerability”
3. “Attempts to conceal or dispose of items”and
4. “There is evidence of community/wider impact.”
Clearly, if you don’t show a find or misrepresent its value, all 3 offences and all 4 high culpability indicators are present! How is that not theft while detecting, i.e. the fifth (and vastly most common) instance of nighthawking?
The Heritage Journal 
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24/01/2019 at 01:48
Ian Horn
Not showing a find is not theft. Not showing a find to a landowner, in contravention of a prearranged agreement, may be a breach of contract, but it is not theft (“The action or crime of stealing”). Removal of a find, without the landowners permission, IS theft.
In misrepresenting a value, one would firstly have to declare a value. And if, as you are constantly whining about, we do not show our finds and as a consequence do not make an account of any sort, how can we be guilty of misrepresentation? (to give a false or misleading account of the nature of)
You ask how “Having permission to detect but not revealing a find or misrepresenting its worth” is not theft? ……there you go.
While we are at it, lets have a look at the 3 relevant offences you mention.
1.Metal detecting is not theft, as theft is a crime. And of course, despite your best efforts, metal detecting is not a crime in the UK, because if it were, every detectorist in the UK would be charged with such. It is also not burglary (“Illegal entry of a building with intent to commit a crime”) as detecting takes place outside of buildings.
2.To handle stolen property, an item would have to have been stolen. Stealing is theft and theft is a crime. I refer you to point 1 above.
3.Payment?? Payment to whom? I have never heard of any land owner or rally organiser ever complaining of non payment at any rally or event that I have attended. But then again, thats not what you are eluding to, is it? You are suggesting theft again. And again, i refer you to point 1 above.
(Or are you saying there is someone else we are legally obliged to make payment to and haven’t? To me, lack of legislation would suggest otherwise?)
Now, trespass is a crime. Damage of, or metal detecting without a license on, a scheduled monument, is a crime. Failing to report an item that might be treasure, is a crime. Travelling to a potential site with metal detecting equipment may amount to an offence of going equipped to steal, if the intent is to commit one of the above mentioned crimes….and if intent is proven…is a crime.
The owning and use of a metal detector, is NOT a crime.
Neither is nighthawking. Nighthawking is a term, that is on occasions, used to describe the activities that lead to one or more of the above crimes.
p.s.
“SEEMS TO SUGGEST” is just like the statement in the Heineken advert…..
“PROBABLY (the best lager in the world)”. They both prefix comments that the writer knows not to be true, but doesnt want to let that mere fact get in the way of them making their point. Right??
27/01/2019 at 15:47
heritageaction
In every respect that misses the point and fails to address the problem. What we describe IS a crime. As has been very clearly shown by the seven indicators.
28/01/2019 at 08:06
Paul Barford (@PortantIssues)
Mr Horn, how about a situation that can occur possibly commonly? Baz gets permission from Farmer Brown to search his fields. Baz starts off at the beginning of the season and in the first few weeks in the first fields by the woods finds a lot of ‘shotties’ and a few Georgian coppers and harness buckles. Shows them to Farmer Brown – who is not overly impressed and gets the idea that that “sad crazy bloke” is “not finding much” and is quite happy with the general “search and take agreement” they had signed a few weeks earlier. He stops coming over to the searcher to ask “what you got?” because he’s bored with the buckles and hearing the same old stories, cant see what the excitement is.
A few weeks later, by a process of trial-and-error, Baz locates the more ‘productive’ areas of the farm, a previously unknown prosperous Roman settlement and copious dense spread of material. Including lots of coins and fibulae. Over beyond the copse is a site that produces lots of sceattas. Baz starts coming home with loads of the stuff, more than he needs for his own collection and showing off at the club. He starts selling the duplicates off on eBay, ten, twenty quid an object sometimes. Next detecting season the same thing happens. Baz decides not to report anything to PAS (because none of it is ‘Treasure’) as he’s afraid he’ll lose his site.
Farmer Brown is in the dark about the site Baz has found and about Baz’s eBay sales. He has an agreement with Baz that any *individual* find worth more than xxxpounds will be sold and the proceeds split, but so far Baz has not come forward with any such find. On the odd occasion they meet, Baz just shows him a buckle or two and some corroded green discs of metal which he dismissively calls “grots” -(“not worth much”). Farmer Brown’s eyes glaze over. He has not got time to hear the story about the emperor that liked little boys and that other one. So he is happy to let Baz get on with it, Baz is happy, the collectors in Oregon, Gainsville and Little Rock buying the coins are happy. EBay gets its cut too. baz’s heirs aere happy they get the artefacts he kept to sell off in due course as a nice little earner left them by the dead man.
But, whatever the document they’ve signed says, by not showing exactly what he is taking and in what quantities, and keeping quiet about its true value (if not just potential) Baz is stealing from Farmer Brown, and Baz by not reporting all those ripped-out objects he’s pocketing and selling off is stealing knowledge from all of us. Selfish, thieving Baz. Illegal? Not yet. Immoral? 100%. Responsible? 0%.
Arguing that it is “technically” not theft as you do cannot hide the fact that actually, it jolly well is.
28/01/2019 at 23:13
Ian Horn
There are crooks in every group within society, no one, I’m sure, is going to deny that. Your hypothetical situation above is feasible and on rare occasions clearly happens. But consider this. Anyone involved in law enforcement, specifically those who’s specialist area is undeclared treasure, would monitor the trade of items on auction sites, looking for patterns, trends and frequent sellers. Baz would come up on their radar and be arrested, just like the 4 detectorists up in front of Worcester crown court in November 2018. Now this kind of arrest is a rarity, especially when measured against the numbers of detectorists and the frequency at which they enjoy their entirely legal hobby. This suggests/demonstrates that the wide scale “theft” and sale of treasure items, that you call common, is actually far from common. So I would suggest that Farmer Brown can sleep peacefully.
Now, as archaeologists who feel the need to highlight the theft of national treasures, I find it surprising that you haven’t mentioned this at any point…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333461/Raider-Lost-Vases-Archaeologist-jailed-15-months-stealing-17th-century-relics-selling-eBay.html
or this
http://illicitculturalproperty.com/archaeologist-pleads-guilty-to-artifact-theft/
But of course this doesn’t fit in with the type of image you wish to portray for yourselves. You would rather portray metal detectorists as all bad, out every day stealing treasure, and archaeologists’ as all good, saving knowledge for the benefit of the nation. But nothing is ever that black and white. Admittedly, the incidents mentioned above are also rare, but as I said earlier, there are crooks in every group within society.
29/01/2019 at 08:21
heritageaction
Of course, there are crooks everywhere Mr Horn. But it’s a matter of scale. The failure of tens of thousands of detectorists to report all their finds isn’t hypothetical or small or comparable with anything else in Britain. It’s mass cultural theft and unforgivable. You’d be better off telling them so than trying to kid the public its not true.
30/01/2019 at 05:46
Paul Barford (@PortantIssues)
Having technical difficulties…
” Your hypothetical situation above is feasible and on rare occasions clearly happens ”
No, I think it happens all the time. For example, look at MD forums where detectorists describe making up a ‘frame’ of artefacts and presenting them (back) to the landowner as a ‘thank you’. How would that work if the landowner had already seen those objects when they left the ground and had said, “you can have that, and that and that”? What would be the point of giving them back if the landowner had already explicitly said he does not want those items?
You say: “Anyone involved in law enforcement, specifically those who’s specialist area is undeclared treasure, would monitor the trade of items on auction sites, looking for patterns, trends and frequent sellers. ”
Oh, you got one of those in the UK do you? Who pays for it?
WHAT would Baz be “arrested” for in the scenario I depicted above? What, Mr Horn? For selling duplicate coins that they do not want for their collection on eBay, don’t a lot of detectorists do that then as part of “enjoying their entirely legal hobby”? Do explain what the difference is between the Baz of my story and the rest of you lot.
” This suggests/demonstrates that the wide scale “theft” and sale of treasure items, that you call common, is actually far from common. So I would suggest that Farmer Brown can sleep peacefully.”
Wot? Who was talking about “Treasure”?I think we really are talking at cross purposes. Read it again before commenting please.
Perhaps also before saying Mr Vessey and the pot theft are not discussed, you might like to check before shooting off accusations. can’t speak for HA, but the story is reported and discussed not once but three times on my blog.