A policeman who cheated a farmer out of a share of historic gold coins worth £15,000 found on his land has been sacked.

PC David Cockle, 50, had a struck deal with the farmer allowing him to go metal detecting on his fields in return for splitting the proceeds of anything he discovered.

But the Norfolk officer reneged on the arrangement after he unearthed up to ten extremely rare Merovingian Tremissis coins dating back to the early 7th century.

Cockle failed to tell the landowner about the find and instead sold the French coins to a dealer for £15,000 and kept the entire amount.

Cockle admitted stealing ten coins between April 2012 and November 2015 at Ipswich Crown Court last month and is due to be sentenced on March 8.

On Monday the Pc was sacked at a misconduct hearing for what Norfolk Chief Constable Simon Bailey described as "one of the grossest breaches of trust" in stealing the coins.

Mr Bailey said it was clear Cockle was allowed to use the land to search for treasure "because he was a police officer and the farmer liked the idea of a police officer on his land".

The chief constable added that Cockle had let the force down by keeping the coins and had "most importantly let the farmer down and the wider public".