| Fishing firm's sentence changed |
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| Wednesday, 15 July 2009 00:00 |
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Last month, Newlyn-based W Stevenson and Sons was handed a two-year conditional discharge instead of a fine at Exeter Crown Court, after admitting falsifying landing documents to sell more expensive fish. A confiscation order was also made for £710,220 – the sum it was estimated it had reaped from its illegal activity. It originally faced an order of up to £4 million, a sum later revised by the Sea Fisheries Agency officer involved in the case. However, the firm was back at Plymouth Crown Court yesterday after it emerged the original sentence was laid down in error. Unknown to both the judge and lawyers at the hearing on June 17, an Appeal Court judgment, which ruled a confiscation order under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 could not be attached to a conditional discharge, had been made just days before. Instead of the conditional discharge, the firm was yesterday ordered to pay £1 each for 45 specimen charges. The confiscation order still stands. It has to pay the sum, as well as prosecution costs of £66,413, within six months. The court heard boats landed high-value quota species of fish such as cod, hake and anglerfish, but then mis-described them on documents supplied to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as non-quota species like ling, turbot and bass. It enabled the company to break European rules designed to save dwindling fish stocks, the prosecution said. At the sentencing in June, Judge Philip Wassall said that, throughout the trial, he had "not lost of sight" of the fact that whatever happened in this case could have a "considerable" knock-on effect on others involved in the fishing industry in and around Newlyn. After that hearing, Elizabeth Stevenson, a partner in the firm, said it would be hard for the firm to find the money to pay the confiscation order, but vowed: "W Stevenson and Sons will survive." article copyright WESTERN MORNING NEWS Links |