To be horrified at this sentence: 5 years! For a non violent crime

[TheAudie]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12047811/Metal-detectorists-jailed-five-years-trying-sell-766-000-Anglo-Saxon-coins.html#comments-12047811

I thought exactly the same as you, OP. Our local paper last night featured a story about a man brutally attacking his pregnant partner causing her to lose the baby, and he got two years.

My thoughts exactly op.

There are child sex offenders, rapists, violent & dangerous people who receive less time in prison than that. It’s ridiculous. Embarrassing really.

Ridiculous. A non violent crime, never likely to be repeated, the public are not at risk. It serves nobody to keep these people locked up. Community service would have been better. I agree with pp that violent crimes should always carry higher sentences than purely financial crimes.

But what if they have no money to pay the fine? What would you do with them then?

So if somebody steals your money, burgled your home, defrauds your grandmother.... you are OK with a bit of litter picking?

It is entirely possible to properly punish violent crime AND other crimes. It is not an either / or. These people deliberately committed a serious crime with the intent to profit and to damage our historical legacy. That is a crime. The fact that rape is also a crime is irrelevant to this matter. You don't increase the penalty for violent or sexual crimes by lowering the penalty for other types of crime.

It isn't the fraud that's significant here, it's the fact that they tried to hide and sell out of the country part of our cultural heritage. Finds like this are historically important, they allow historians to map and chart movement, they can't be pillaged into the hands of wealthy Americans for private collections. The hoard didn't belong to the men who found it, they belong to all of us.

I’m so, so sorry that you experienced such an awful trauma, and at such a young age. And I am disgusted that that rapist must have been given such a short prison sentence. Please know that many of us wish that he would have gone to prison for life and never seen freedom again. I hope he never has a moment of peace if he is still alive.

It both infuriates me and breaks my heart that sex offenders, who often inflict life long damage and pain on their victims, are given such disgustingly short sentences. Victims of such crimes should be protected and nurtured and given a clear message through the justice system that their safety, wellbeing and happiness matter via proper sentences for the attacker. Sex offenders are worthless pieces of shit that contribute nothing good to society. I honestly wish they would all get life in prison.

My mum's partner sexually abused his daughter, pled guilty and served no prison time. Another family member sexually abused his niece and got 18 months.

I was 14 in the 2000s.

I was early school age when it became a crime for a husband to rape his wife as opposed to his right.

Thanks for your support everyone. I’m doing ok now
but I took me 20 years to put myself back together. I’m not sure what the fall out to anyone was of the sky box fraud but I hope the sentence their abuser got brings them some sense of safety 🙄

I was once reading the metro and discovered that someone got double the jail time for installing knock off sky boxes than the man in his 60s who raped my 14yo self in my school uniform.

It is by design. To make the public fearful and feeling helpless. Also prohibiting any self defense.

It's the 'conspiracy' element that's bumped up the sentencing along with the fact they must have taken it to trial. It's not just to do with the selling of the coins themselves.

The criminal justice system is to protect property, not people.

They haven’t stolen in that they aren’t depriving the owners of it who are long gone.

The 5 year sentence is because they didn’t turn over what they found to “The Crown” as if they need it. This country is a fucking joke.

They are wealthy people. A fine would be almost meangingless to them.

Illegal trading in stolen/looted antiquities - which this is, no different from buying a (genuine) dead sea scroll from a tombrobber or a menorah from the descendants of the nazi who stole it from a destroyed synagogue - is very popular with organised crime.

Perhaps if people looked at it being a way of financing and money laundering proceeds of rape, murder, drugs, arms, child rape and not two blokes with a metal detector, they might take it as seriously as the law requires it to be.

All prison sentences should be longer and more people should go to prison. Get the criminals locked up to a) prevent them committing more crimes and b) to prevent them influencing others to commit crimes, also stop them breeding children who will grow up to be the next generation of criminals.

Prison doesn't have to be so expensive either. Do away with all the "luxuries" and go back to basics, stick them in a cell and leave them there. Throw some food into the cell once in a while. No playstation, no internet, no mobile phones, nothing.

I think it’s insulting for the many victims or robbery, assault or rape whose cases are closed and never looked into or investigated. That their pain and suffering is of less value.

I posted this morning about a “funny” story in the DM where the police set up a sting operation against a driver who kept giving them the finger. Policing is supposed to be fair, transparent and equal so boasting about treating people unfairly and going out of their way to trap one person because they didn’t like him just underlines that actually their behaviour is shady, unfair and inequal.

Others have stated the truth- these are bot master criminals running a network of thieves.

Found historic items belong to the crown in order to protect it! If there was nothing in place what's to stop every treasure Hunter selling off items of historical significance to wealthy overseas buyers!? This is important- it belongs to all of us. It is a part of our heritage.

It's meant to be a deterrent - not just to stop people nicking stuff, but to discourage mental detector hobbyists full stop - they are a menace, and they wreck archaeological sites.

It's illegal to do it in many countries.

I don't think the issue is with this sentence (and such convictions would be very rare) - it's with the very low conviction and light sentencing for violent sexual crimes.

Then the problem is that rapists – assuming they've actually been convicted... – don't get appropriately long prison sentences. That has nothing to do with the sentencing for other crimes, this one or any other.

If it was actually to do with protecting our heritage then they would offer a reward for anyone who has excavated it. It’s an outdated money grab on behalf of the crown which has long needed updating.

Oh, I agree. Meanwhile a child rapist got no jail time and the torturers and murderers of a disabled girl got about the same jail time. I was sitting there and thinking so a disabled girls life is worth as much as not reporting finding thirty pieces of silver. ( I know it was 44 coins but the Judas selling Jesus out for thirty pieces seemed apt)

Our justice system is a joke.

Criminal mindset and you think they should be out walking free?

What about previous offences, did they have any?

Guess nobody here knows that

WOW

The Scottish system let off a rapist since he was under 25. Some twaddle about brain not matured enough to understand that rape is wrong so given a slap on wrist and off you toddle.

You mean like the Treasure reward people are awarded if the objects they find are acquired by a museum through the Treasure Act? https://finds.org.uk/treasure
The 'Crown' gets nothing, and actually pays out to the finder an landowner when objects that qualify as Treasure are found.
As for 'updating', the Treasure Act (1996) revision 2023 is literally passing through parliament at the moment.
The point being missed by most people here is that these people didn't steal from the Crown or the Government, they wanted to steal from each and everyone one of us, just like (as some have said) if someone stole from your bank account or home.