"ILLEGAL hoard of gold", proclaimed the intriguing headline in the Malvern Gazette 50 years ago.

It was the story of a Berrow businessman charged with possessing 450 gold sovereigns and 40 gold half-sovereigns - worth some £1,360 - in contravention of the 1947 Exchange Control Act.

It seems that the previous December, the man's house was burgled and a safe containing the gold was stolen.

When police recovered the gold, its owner confessed that he had accumulated it "through ordinary business transactions over a period of 20 to 25 years".

The 1947 Act stipulated that "if anyone had any gold or gold bullion, which were not collectors' pieces, and were not held to the express satisfaction of the Treasury, they should be surrendered to an authorised dealer".

The businessman said he had never heard of the Act, and the prosecutor admitted the case had been brought primarily to alert the public to its existence.

The businessman was fined £10 with £10 10s costs and was allowed to sell the gold and keep the proceeds.

This was a pretty lenient sentence, since he could have been jailed for three months, ordered to forfeit the gold and fined up to three times its value.