Bournemouth metal detectorist reaches 500th find

“Of all the ones that I’ve done, it was very unusual,” he said.

Abi Colborne was the owner of the 500th item, which she said she took off and threw during “a bit of an argument”.

Wiles said: “We thought it had cleared the bush and hit her partner’s leg on the ground so I searched all around, but I thought ‘do you know what, I’m gonna give it one last go’, and I kind of used my detector to go on the top and there was a signal there.”

Standing on a wheelie bin, Wiles used a handheld device to scan the top of the bush where the signal had been found.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw it in there, so I had to carefully try and get it out, otherwise it would have fallen into the bottom of the bush,” he added.