According to local news agency Charles Leslie McBride was jailed for two months and his son, Charles Hubert, for three at Liverpool Crown Court. The court imposed fine of £370,000 on them after being convicted of landing illegal quotas of fish in 2007. They appeared in court for not paying the outstanding balance. The men appeared in the BBC Scotland series Trawlermen, about the lives of fishermen in Peterhead.
In 2007 these fishermen including County Down fisherman – Leslie Clifford Girvan – were ordered to pay back more than £1m which they netted through the quota scam to the Assets Recovery Agency. Charles Leslie McBride, 55, his 36-year-old son Charles Hubert McBride, both Cromlech Road, and Leslie Clifford Girvan, 65, of Rooney Road, had admitted several specimen charges in January 2007 of landing fish stocks in excess of their permitted quotas.
It is mentioned that the three fishermen, and two Kilkeel-based fish-selling firms of which they were directors, had made more than £15m from the criminal conduct. The Marine and Fisheries Agency has brought the quota prosecutions after the detection of inaccurate fish landing declarations involving 12 fishing vessels, some of which were owned and controlled by the men from January to October 2003.
