EXCLUSIVE Police officer, 50, who was jailed after secretly selling rare gold coins is told he could have made more than £100,000 if had been honest
Amateur detectorist and PC David Cockle, 50, was jailed for 16 months after he admitted the theft of ten early medieval coins which he unearthed and sold secretly for £15,000.
Rules around treasure finds mean they must be officially declared before they can be sold but Cockle failed to tell anyone about 7th-century gold coins he found while metal detecting on a farmer's land.
Now it's emerged that the former detectorist partner and the farmer who he cheated on have shared a payout of £367,200 they got by sticking to the rules - meaning Cockle could not only have avoided losing his reputation and going to prison but also had a six-figure sum instead.
The coins were among 131 found by him and another detectorist in a field in west Norfolk, making it Britain's largest ever hoard of seventh-century gold coins.
The former Norfolk officer and the other detectorist both had agreements with the landowner to report any finds and split any reward money.
The hoard was declared treasure trove in 2021, and 129 of the coins along with four gold fragments from the field have now been acquired for £367,200 by Norwich Castle Museum.
The money is being split as a reward between the landowner and the honest detectorist who reported his finds over a period of years while Cockle received nothing.
Cockle was unable to return to the field after his dishonesty was uncovered, meaning he missed out on the chance of finding more coins and getting a larger share of any future reward.
But the other detectorist who had already found 35 coins, was allowed to continue searching and discovered another 85.
Cockle ignored his contract with the landowner after he dug up ten Merovingian Tremissis coins dating back to the late 6th century and early 7th century.
Ipswich Crown Court heard how he secretly sold the coins to a dealer in three batches for £15,000 between August 2014 and October 2015, and pocketed the cash.
His dishonesty was uncovered after he bragged to fellow officers about his find, and how he was not reporting it.
Cockle had lied to coin dealer Michael Vosper that he had found the coins individually at different sites, meaning they did not have to be reported to a coroner.
Prosecutor Gerald Pounder said that Mr Vosper had sold some of the coins and had been forced to reimburse the buyers as they had bought stolen property.
Cockle who previously lived in Wereham, Norfolk, and later moved to Leigh, Lancashire, admitted the theft of coins between April 2012 and November 2015.
The court heard he had carried out the fraud to help pay for his divorce.
But Judge Rupert Overbury told him that he was motivated by 'greed' and to pay for his gambling habit, and had caused 'significant and irreversible' harm as archaeological work was not carried out immediately at the site.
The judge jailed him for 16 months after accusing him of 'bringing the metal detecting community into disrepute'.
He said: 'Many enjoy the pastime for the enjoyment and thrill of finding something significant. I have no doubt that the confidence of landowners and the general public in the good intentions of detectorists will be eroded particularly in the area where the coins were found.
'It is plain that you deliberately and dishonestly chose not to inform the authorities to maximise any profit from the sale of your treasure. You spun a web of deceit to a legitimate dealer in coins.'
The judge also issued Cockle with a criminal behaviour order banning him from being involved in metal detecting for five years
Cockle who had been metal detecting for 30 years, was said to be full of remorse and the court heard he had given up his hobby.
He was later ordered to repay the £15,000 he made from the coins at a Proceeds of Crime hearing.
The hoard at the museum features 118 coin designs from 51 different European mints, as well as ten coins from Byzantium, including two from Constantinople.
Most of them are Frankish tremisses from the Merovingian Frankish Kingdoms that occupied much of modern-day France, Germany, Switzerland and the Low Countries.
The tremisses were the first coins made and used in Europe after the fall of the Roman empire and predate the first gold coinage made in Anglo-Saxon England.
The collection is one of only eight hoards of this coin type known from Europe and only the third from the UK.
It is believed that the Norfolk hoard was buried in around 610 AD, judging from the date of the newest coins.
The coins acquired by the museum are two less than the declared size of the treasure hoard as one of the coins stolen by Cockle was never recovered.
Dr Tim Pestell, the senior curator of archaeology at Norwich Castle Museum, said: 'As with all Treasure rewards, the money is split 50/50 between the landowner and the finder.
'In this case, the full reward value was paid to the landowner for those coins found by the jailed detectorist.'
A Norfolk County Council spokesperson said: 'Thanks to the responsible detectorist, we are now able to explore an internationally-significant find that will open a new window into the past.'
Cockle was sacked at a Norfolk police misconduct hearing when the county's chief constable Simon Bailey described his theft as 'one of the grossest breaches of trust.
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