A metal detectorist has been fined after pleading guilty to unlawfully removing a gold coin of archaeological importance

© The Trustees of the British Museum

An Essex man who found and unlawfully took a Roman gold coin from private land in Norfolk, using “sophisticated” metal detecting equipment in an act known as nighthawking, has been fined £400 and ordered to pay £250 in costs.The British Museum reported the detectorist to Essex Police in April 2013 after becoming suspicious that he possessed items which should have been declared to the Coroner under the Treasure Act 1996.A subsequent property search revealed papers implying the theft and sale of two gold coins. One of them, removed from Castle Acre, dated from the period of the Emperor Valentinian and was worth £200."We recognise that the majority of the metal detecting community comply with the laws and regulations relating to the discovery and recovery of objects,” said Mark Harrison, the National Policing and Crime Advisor for English Heritage.“However, we work hard with the police to identify the criminal minority who operate outside of the law."Discoveries of individual artefacts can inform us about our past. The presence of a coin like this one indicates that the site was perhaps a Roman villa or temple, or provides evidence that the settlement was wealthy.“That knowledge, in this case, has been lost."Nighthawking is a form of theft carried out at sites where permission to survey or dig has not being granted or sought.