Shetland trawlermen illegally caught £15m worth of herring and mackerel

Six skippers face unlimited fines and multi-million pound confiscation orders after admitting breaching fishing quotas

By Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent www.guardian.co.uk
Thursday 26 August 2010 17.45 BST Six trawlermen from Shetland face unlimited fines and multi-million pound confiscation orders for illegally landing £15m worth of herring and mackerel to cheat strict quotas designed to conserve fish stocks. The six skippers from Lerwick admitted today that they made false declarations about the true size of their catch after nearly 200 voyages between January 2002 and March 2005, deliberately breaching their own annual fishing quotas. Their conviction followed a long-running investigation by police and the Scottish fisheries protection agency which also led to guilty pleas from a Lerwick-based fish wholesalers Shetland Catch Ltd for supplying false reports about the size of the landings. The case is one of the largest-ever involving so-called “black landings”, the illegal practice once widespread in Scottish ports where skippers deliberately caught and landed fish which breached quotas, in defiance of European conservation measures. The practice has largely died out, but Scott Pattison, director of operations with Scotland’s prosecution authority, the Crown Office, said there were other similar investigations under way. “This is not a victimless crime. The consequences of overfishing on this scale are far-reaching and the impact on fish stocks and the marine environment is potentially devastating,” he said. “The legislation is to protect the marine environment for the good of all and to safeguard the fishing industry.” …