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We were intrigued by this recent press report:
http://tinyurl.com/6dezgg

It seems that Mr John Browning is unlucky enough to own land that was once a Roman settlement, a fact that has come to the knowledge of thieves. "Nighthawk" metal detectorists have raided it three times in the past five days, the latest in a long list of incidents - "At least 50 people have been caught and penalised over the years and Mr Browning believes more than 100 incidents have gone unpunished."

Fifty caught and one hundred incidents unpunished, 150 in total. That's 1.5% of the official estimate of the number of metal detectorists in Britain. On just one farm! How can this be reconciled with the claim by metal detectorists that nighthawks make up only a tiny minority of their numbers? An isolated statistical blip, not part of a wider phenomenon (we hear it claimed, or will soon! ) Unfortunately though, loads of neighbouring farms have been targeted and in the published words of a detectorist local to the farm: "Trouble is, it is not just Mr. Brownings farm there that has the problem. Neighbouring land, land all around that area is regularly targeted, it is not far from West Stow, Mildenhall, etc. Hawkers go all over there. It is just that Mr. Browning is on a mission with them, and is constantly trying to catch them with all sorts of equipment etc. Good on him, but that is why you hear about more convictions with him and his land."

In other words, when it comes to estimating how many nighthawks are out there, the more you look the more you find! We hope the authors of the imminent Nighthawking Survey bear this simple algorithm in mind. They're hard to see on account of the lack of light! Getting people's vague impressions of what goes on in the dark is one thing. Seeing it, for sure, is another. Perhaps there should be a second survey, "A Nighthawking Survey not based upon vague impressions but on Nightvision Surveillance"! Would the figures be higher? Ask Mr Browning who has seen it happen on his land 150 times, a figure no doubt comparable to the national total of confirmed sightings by people not using night vision equipment.

Mr Browning has certainly tried very hard:
"Earlier this year three men were fined for visiting the site equipped to steal. They were spotted on the site by Mr Browning who was using a special nightscope. Ricky McCabe, 34, David Miller, 38, and Alan Chapman, 37, all from Chadwell St Mary, each admitted going to a field equipped to steal. All three were ordered to pay £250 in costs, McCabe and Miller fined £250 and Chapman fined £500 when they appeared before a judge at Ipswich Crown Court in March."

Were the fines high enough? Hardly, in a week in which someone has been jailed for a year for stealing a few medals from his local museum. (When will Britain start treating crooks with finds pouches as harshly as crooks with swag bags? ) And not in comparison with the oodles the bronze heads and statuettes they were after would have fetched on Ebay once "laundered by description" (I dug 'em up in me back garden, honest mate, so it's legal innit? ). And we know some importers over the Atlantic that would gobble the goods up for their Collector clients. (All together guys: "We're ethical, we are, and our respectable Limey suppliers whose confidence we must respect told us the goods were legit, honest Bud, so it's legal ain't it?"

And so it goes. Assorted lootings from the four corners of the world end up academically labelled in polished walnut (or sometimes rosewood) cabinets in Ohio and everyone's blameless. And in the case of Britain the route leads from the criminal chapter and the much larger unethical and conservation-blind chapters of a hobby for heroes straight to American collecting zeroes, day after week after year after decade. A plague on them all. Look left if you want to see what erosion of the British artefactual resource partly fuelled by this process means. Look again in a few minutes, it will have worsened and someone in Ohio will be a little bit more proud.

Detectorists, predictably, are expressing outrage even though very many of them say there are known nighthawks in their local clubs (30% was estimated in one case.) Would you stay part of a part-criminal club dear reader? And say nothing? And then publicly rage about how awful criminals are? One detectorist has just posted this telling remark: "They'll be back out tonight on another site to get the goods to pay the fine."

Mr Browning said he often carries out night patrols but doesn't know what more he could do to protect the site as he couldn't do it every night. A metal detectorist has just offered him a solution: "Give permission for detectorists to go on during the day, maybe a club, they can record finds and treasure split 50/50 with farmer, will make it not worth hawking if done properly" Spiffing idea! Got a burglary problem? Invite a load of strangers with no testimonials but a known predeliction for valuables such as yours, some of them with Ebay accounts, to come into your house, clear half of them out permanently to their houses or auction them and maybe get a huge financial reward as well! And what's that sign on their bulging finds pouches? "Only in it for love of history, definitely not money"? So what does 50/50 refer to? In the circumstances we'd hope they'd also offer to tarmac the drive while they were there.

No, we think Mr Browning deserves no such kind offers of visits, just huge thanks from the rest of us for unselfishly making such an effort to save artefacts for the community rather than spending endless hours beep-beeping after them purely to claim them for himself as every single metal detectorist does, whether nighthawk or not. In fact maybe he could get public funding for what he does (paid direct from the Portable Antiquities Scheme budget perhaps), or a reward. A million pounds would be about right since that is the level of reward some metal detectorists have received under the Treasure Act.

And while we're at it, how about a government minister publicly announcing that Mr John Browning is an unsung heritage hero, like the previous Minister of Culture said about metal detectorists? Seems fair.

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