The owners and skippers of six Newlyn fishing vessels who deliberately overfished protected fish stocks for financial gain and an auctioneer who sold their fish were ordered to pay a total of £188,450 in fines and costs by a judge at Truro Crown Court, UK, on 6 January.
The owners and skippers had been convicted following two earlier court hearings in 2006 and 2007 of a total of 114 specimen charges of failing to submit landing declarations that accurately indicated the quantities of each species landed.
The deception related to illegal landings of fish between April to September 2002. The specimen charges totalled fish to the value of £141,000.
Fish auctioneers, the partnership of W. Stevenson and Sons, of Newlyn which was also convicted of failing to supply accurate sales notes of the fish is subject to confiscation proceedings under the Criminal Justice Act 1988. They face confiscation of any assets acquired through illegal fish trading. Those proceedings are still ongoing.
The partnership’s auctioneer Julian Bick, 44, of Newlyn who was convicted at Truro Crown Court in October 2006 of four counts of aiding and abetting W. Stevenson & Sons was fined a total of £12,000 with £6000 costs.
The boats targeted and landed high value quota species of fish such as cod, hake and anglerfish but then mis-described them on documents supplied to Defra as non-quota species like ling, turbot and bass.
The court heard it was a deliberate well organised deception to avoid the quota restrictions which aim to protect fish stocks and allow fishermen to take their fair share.
Instead, the scam allowed vessels’ owners to maximise their profits because they did not have to buy or lease in the quota for the species they had actually caught – even though it was available throughout the investigation period.
The six vessels were: The Carol H; the Ajax; Girl Patricia; Ben Loyal; Ben My Chree and CKS.
