The treasurer of an archeology group in England stole more than £11,000 from his fellow archeologists to help out his family. Leicestershire Fieldworkers help with excavation programmes throughout the county and investigate local history, and archeologist John Maloney was in charge of their bank account, but when his family needed cash he wrote a string of cheques to himself to take care of them (Tom Mack, 'Man stole £11k from Leicestershire archaeology group to help ill family' Mercury, 30 May 2019).

On Tuesday the 54-year-old appeared at Leicester Crown Court for sentencing having pleaded guilty to fraud, where a judge gave him a suspended jail sentence on the understanding he would pay back the outstanding money. The court heard that since he was charged, Maloney had successfully paid back more than £6,000 but about £4,000 was still outstanding. [...] Andrew Howarth, representing Maloney, said his client [...] was selling his coin collection to pay money back to the group and could also promise to pay £200 a month until the outstanding cash was repaid. Judge Timothy Spencer [...] said: “You had an interest in archaeology, metal detecting and that sort of thing and then you turned to crime. “It was systematic milking of an account you were trusted to look after.

This well illustrates the hypocrisy of the archeology uber alles lobby, who are often heard to call metal detectorists and collectors of coins and antiquities thieves, but it turns out are not averse to doing a little stealing themselves. And what a surprise to find that archaeologists too have coin collections worth thousands of pounds...