offences came to light when protection vessel crew boarded Banff-registered Seagull
Macduff skipper fined £5,000 for megrim catch
Published:
A trawler skipper was fined £5,000 yesterday for two contraventions of fish conservation rules that could have cost him a maximum penalty of £100,000.
Gary Mutch, 44, of 8 Melrose Crescent, Macduff, master of the Banff-registered Seagull, pleaded guilty to catching 12 boxes of megrim off Ross and Cromarty where that fish had become a prohibited species 15 days earlier.
He also admitted failing to register the catch in his fish log.
Fiscal Stewart MacIver told Sheriff Colin McClory at Dingwall Sheriff Court that each charge could earn a £50,000 maximum fine.
He said the offences came to light when a fishery protection vessel boarding party went on to the Seagull on November 28 last year while the vessel was on a five-hour trawl with only Mutch on duty in the wheelhouse.
Satellite tracking let the protection boat know the Seagull was fishing in an area banned for megrim.
Mr MacIver said Mutch was asked how many boxes of megrim he had on board. There were 12 boxes found, more than he seemed to be aware of, and they had not been logged. Defence solicitor Aileen Macinnes said: “He should have known what was on board and recorded it, but didn’t.”
She said Mutch was an employee of the Seagull’s owners, earning between £30,000 and £35,000 a year, and didn’t have a share in the boat. Mrs Macinnes said one member of the crew was in charge of the fish log, but the skipper would complete the log at the end of each day after consultation with that crew member.
She added: “The fishery officers asked him to bring his fish log up to date and he did so without consultation with this crew member.”
The fish was on board and unrecorded “either through oversight or lack of organisation” said Mrs Macinnes.
The Seagull was ordered to sail to Scrabster, Caithness, where the megrim was sold for £1,652 — with the money apparently going to the vessel.
Mrs Macinnes said the boat suffered “significant” economic loss as a result of the offences — having to steam 12 hours to Scrabster, wait 12 hours there, then steam 12 hours back to the fishing grounds at an additional fuel cost of £3,000. There were also crew wages and loss of days at sea to be considered. Mrs Macinnes added: “I think it fair to say Mr Mutch is in some degree of difficulty with his employers.”
Sheriff McClory said: “As master he is responsible for making sure that only allowable catch is, firstly, caught, and also that whatever is caught is properly recorded. He did neither of these things even when given the opportunity to do so. It does seem to stretch it a little bit to suggest he didn’t know about 12 boxes of this valuable catch.”
