According to the information a judicial court has found a BRIXHAM skipper and his company guilty to retaining almost nine tones of undersized scallops and was ordered to pay a total of £24,000 as fine. It was found that Stephen Trust and his family-run Trust Trawlers pleaded guilty to retaining 77,670 scallops which were under the 110 mm size limit applying in the area of the Channel where he caught them.
As per the court version Trust Trawlers’ vessel, the Jacomina, was boarded five days after he had left Brixham in January by fishery officers from the fishery protection vessel HMS Tyne, who found the undersized scallops. After detail investigation revealed that more than half the number of scallops caught on that trip by the Jacomina were undersized.
Prosecuting for the Marine Management Organisation, Robert Newman said that had they been landed, that is the price that would have been attracted and that would have been illegal benefit to the company. Newman told the court that a major and consistent retention of undersized scallops affected the young stock’s opportunity to reproduce and had a serious impact on the population.
