Jailed Lancashire thief ordered to repay £103,000 after attempted rare coin sale
A metal detectorist jailed for trying to sell Anglo-Saxon coins to an undercover police officer he thought was an expert working for a wealthy American buyer has been ordered to repay £103,000.
Roger Pilling, 77, from Loveclough, Lancashire, has three months to repay the money or he could face another 12-month prison sentence.
He was convicted with a second man of conspiring to sell 44 ninth century coins worth £766,000 and jailed for five years and two months at Durham Crown Court in May 2023.
The coins, which were never declared as treasure, were believed to have been buried by a Viking and included two extremely rare examples of two-headed coins, showing Alfred of Wessex and Ceolwulf II of Mercia.
Pilling and his co-defendant Craig Best, 48, previously of Bishop Auckland, County Durham, tried to sell the coins to a real American collector, who contacted UK experts about how such rare pieces were available for sale, and police were called in.
Forty-four coins were recovered in the following sting operation but two – that Pilling claimed he had broken – were never found.
On 24 April 2025, Pilling was ordered to repay £103,000 after a confiscation order was granted at Teeside Crown Court.
He has three months to make the payment or he could face another 12-month prison sentence.
Adrian Foster, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the CPS Proceeds of Crime Division, said: 'Roger Pilling intended to sell these rare and important coins for his own gain.
'He knew that these coins were stolen treasure and instead of choosing to report a crime, he chose to try and profit from it.
'The CPS worked with the police to value his criminal benefit from the attempted selling of these rare Anglo-Saxon coins, which should have been given to the Crown.
'The Confiscation Order set by the Judge reflects all the assets available to the defendants.
'We will always work to ensure that crime does not pay, and criminals cannot benefit from their ill-gotten gains.'
The coins were estimated to have been made between 874 CE and 879 CE.
The sentencing judge found that the 44 coins were part of a larger, undeclared find known as the Herefordshire or Leominster Hoard, which was discovered in 2015 and is worth millions of pounds, but which was also not declared.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Belfast Telegraph
7 hours ago
- Belfast Telegraph
Israel says its military has retrieved body of Thai hostage from Gaza
The country's prime minister's office said on Saturday that the body of Thai citizen Nattapong Pinta was returned to Israel in a special military operation. The announcement comes as Israel continues its military offensive across the strip, killing at least 95 people in the past 24 hours, according to Gaza's health ministry. Mr Pinta was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and killed in captivity near the start of the war, said the Israeli government. This comes two days after the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages were retrieved. Fifty-five hostages remain in Gaza, of whom Israel says more than half are dead. Israel's defence minister said on Saturday that Mr Pinta's body was retrieved from the Rafah area. He had come to Israel from Thailand to work in agriculture. The army said he was taken into Gaza by the Mujahideen Brigades, the small armed group that it said had also abducted and killed Shiri Bibas and her two small children. It is also the same group that took the two Israeli-American hostages, Judih Weinstein and Gad Haggai, whose bodies were retrieved by the army on Thursday. Israel said it found Mr Pinta's body based on information received from the hostage taskforce and military intelligence. A statement from the hostage forum, which supports the hostages, said it stands with Mr Pinta's family and shares in their grief. It called on the country's decision makers to bring home the remaining hostages and give those who have died a proper burial. Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive by Hamas militants. Many of the Thai agricultural workers lived in compounds on the outskirts of southern Israeli kibbutzim and towns, and Hamas militants overran those places first. A total of 46 Thais have been killed during the conflict, according to Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before Mr Pinta's body was retrieved, three Thai hostages remained in captivity and two were confirmed dead. The fate of Mr Pinta was uncertain until Saturday, according to the hostage forum. The retrieval of Mr Pinta's body comes as Israel continues its military campaign across Gaza. Hospital officials said they received the bodies of nearly two dozen people on Saturday. Four strikes hit the Muwasi area in southern Gaza between Rafah and Khan Younis. In northern Gaza, one strike hit a flat, killing seven people including a mother and five children. Their bodies were taken to Shifa hospital. Israel said on Saturday that it is responding to Hamas's 'barbaric attacks' and is dismantling its capabilities. It said it follows international law and takes all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted 251 hostages. They are still holding 55 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages from Gaza and recovered dozens of bodies. Israel's military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of roughly two million Palestinians.
Metro
7 hours ago
- Metro
45 arrested after police pepper spray protesters outside immigration raid
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Massive immigration raids promised by Donald Trump are underway in major cities across the US – and one in Los Angeles descended into chaos. Raids took place across the City of Angels, but counterprotests led to multiple arrests, allegedly without warrants. Two Home Depot stores, a clothing shop called Ambient Apparel and other locations were raided by ICE agents. The video showed police throwing smoke bombs and one officer tackling a protester. Hundreds gathered as tensions increased. The violent scenes sparked outrage online, and the Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights said 45 people were arrested without warrants. Executive director Angelica Salas said: 'Our community is under attack and is being terrorised. These are workers, these are fathers, these are mothers, and this has to stop. 'Immigration enforcement that is terrorising our families throughout this country and picking up our people that we love must stop now.' 'I am closely monitoring the Ice raids that are currently happening across Los Angeles, including at a Korean-American-owned store in my district,' Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove said. 'LA has long been a safe haven for immigrants. Trump claims he's targeting criminals, but he's really just tearing families apart and destabilising entire communities.' Mayor Karen Bass said Los Angeles would 'not stand' for the violent scenes witnessed across the city. Trump began his immigration crackdown shortly after re-entering office. More Trending In January, more than 500 arrests were made in one day before the first flights out of the United States began. The President issued an executive order, posted to the White House website, outlining Trump's plan to prevent undocumented immigrants from 'invading' communities and costing state and local governments. And a policy which previously restricted officers' abilities to arrest undocumented immigrants at 'sensitive' locations, such as schools, churches and hospitals, was rolled back. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Inside the immigration raids on UK nail bars, construction sites and restaurants MORE: Why I'm scared by a report about Britain's 'minority white' future MORE: Universal digital 'BritCards' on an app could soon be used to prove who you are
Leader Live
7 hours ago
- Leader Live
Man mistakenly deported to El Salvador brought back to US to face charges
Kilmar Abrego Garcia faces charges related to what US President Donald Trump's government said was a large human smuggling operation that brought immigrants into the country illegally. His abrupt release from El Salvador is the latest twist in a saga that sparked a months-long standoff between Trump administration officials and the courts over a deportation that officials initially acknowledged was done in error but then continued to stand behind in apparent defiance of orders by judges to facilitate his return to the US. The development occurred after US officials presented El Salvador President Nayib Bukele with an arrest warrant for federal charges in Tennessee accusing Abrego Garcia of playing a key role in smuggling immigrants into the country for money. He is expected to be prosecuted in the US and, if convicted, will be returned to his home country of El Salvador at the conclusion of the case, officials said. 'This is what American justice looks like,' US attorney general Pam Bondi said in announcing Abrego Garcia's return and the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. Abrego Garcia's lawyers called the case 'baseless'. 'There's no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy,' lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said. Federal magistrate judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville, Tennessee, determined that Abrego Garcia will be held in custody until at least next Friday, when there will be an arraignment and detention hearing. Abrego Garcia appeared in court wearing a short-sleeved, white, buttoned shirt. When asked if he understood the charges, he told the judge through an interpreter: 'Yes. I understand.' Democrats and immigrant rights groups had pressed for Abrego Garcia's release, with several politicians – including senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, where Abrego Garcia had lived for years – even travelling to El Salvador to visit him. A federal judge had ordered him to be returned in April and the US Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal by directing the government to work to bring him back. But the news that Abrego Garcia, who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs, was being brought back for the purpose of prosecution was greeted with dismay by his lawyers. The case also prompted the resignation of a top supervisor in the US attorney's office in Nashville, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter. Ben Schrader, who was chief of the office's criminal division, did not explain the reason for his resignation but posted to social media around the time the indictment was being handed down, saying: 'It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I've ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons.' He declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press on Friday.
