A shock wave has run through the fishing industry an extraordinary case in Ipswich Crown Court.

The Telegraph 03/08/2008

When the Marine and Fisheries Agency (MFA) caught the last three Thames Estuary fishermen with boats just over 10 metres long committing comparatively minor offences against the regulations, it invoked a law designed to confiscate the assets of drug dealers and other serious criminals to punish the men so severely that they stand to lose all they possess.

Because the agency, ignoring its own rules, had denied them a quota sufficient to earn a modest living, Victor Good, 68, of Harwich, Trevor Mole, 56, of West Mersea and Steve Barnes, 48, of Whitstable, had landed 19 tons of sole for which they had no EU quota.

When they were caught by a year-long agency "entrapment" operation, Judge Neil McKittrick not only imposed crippling fines totalling £42,500, with costs of £27,646, but also agreed to confiscations of their assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act, to a total of £213,461. Unless this is paid within months they face two years in prison.

The root of the problem for the three men was that their sole quota had been reduced so much that it no longer paid them to fish. They were aware that substantial quantities of UK quota, allocated mainly to Dutch-owned "flag boats", were not being fished for.
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In 2006 alone, 346 tons of the relevant sole quota remained unused. Under the "rules for the management of UK fisheries quotas", any quota unlikely to be caught should be reallocated to "those groups most likely to make use of it".

But the authorities refused to follow these rules, so the three men landed sole illegally, and sold it to a fish merchant called Kamil Kolancali.

The MFA learned what was going on, and arranged that Mr Kolancali - in exchange for a promise of leniency - should record his illegal purchases for a year, as evidence against the three men. When charged they therefore pleaded guilty.

Steve Barnes, in particular, was anxious to co-operate, on the understanding that the charges against his 20-year old son Matthew would be dropped. He is an unusually keen and capable young fisherman who held his first skipper's ticket when he was only 16.

The men expected fines. What they did not expect, at the second hearing, was that the agency would also invoke the Proceeds of Crime Act, designed to penalise major criminals such as money launderers and drug barons.

The MFA trawled through the fishermen's bank statements, and they were told it was up to them to prove that each of thousands of payments was legal: otherwise the payment would be deemed "proceeds of crime" and confiscated.

Steve Barnes admits that paperwork is not his strong suit. In his case, the judge ordered that £70,000 of his assets should be seized - far above any income he says he made from illegally selling sole.

This would amount to nothing less than his house (left to his wife by her mother) and his boat, the Our Sarah Jayne, which he has owned for seven years - neither in any way the "proceeds of crime".

In imposing the orders, the judge observed that "the regulations are there for a purpose, they are not perfect. They are there to preserve fish stocks so that the UK and Europe can continue to enjoy fish." He overlooked the fact that the unused sole quota was 17 times greater than the men's illegal catches - some of which should, under the rules, have been allocated to them anyway.

Mr Barnes says that, in recent years, regulations and over-zealous officialdom have made fishing so difficult that if it wasn't for wanting to hand on the business to his son he would have given up long ago.

Now both will lose everything - for reasons that most of us would find hard to understand.

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