Fish scammers must pay back £1m

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Three County Down fishermen have been ordered to pay back more than £1m which they netted through a fish quota scam.

They were convicted at Liverpool Crown Court in January of landing fish stocks in excess of their permitted quotas.

On Monday, a judge at the same court said the trio and two Kilkeel-based fish-selling firms had made more than £15m from this criminal conduct.

The fishermen were given six months to either pay the money to the Assets Recovery Agency or face imprisonment.

The Marine and Fisheries Agency brought the prosecutions after the detection of inaccurate fish-landing declarations involving 12 fishing boats.

Convictions

After the convictions in January, the Assets Recovery Agency began investigating whether the men benefited from under-declaring fishing catches at Kilkeel and Whitehaven, Cumbria - a practice commonly known as landing "black" fish.

Charles Leslie McBride, 54, of Cromlech Park, Mountain Road, his 35-year-old son Charles Hubert McBride, of Irvington Park and Leslie Clifford Girvan, 64, of Rooney Road, had admitted several specimen charges in January.

Representatives for two companies - McBride Fishing Company Limited, of which the McBrides are joint directors and Kilkeel Fish Selling Company Limited, of which Girvan is director - had also pleaded guilty.

The judge found on Monday that the five defendants had illegally made a total of £15,115,204:

<ul class="bulletList"><li>Charles Leslie McBride: £647,334; </li><li>Charles Hubert McBride: £489,689; </li><li>Leslie Clifford Girvan: £1,003,686;</li><li>McBride Fishing Company Limited: £380,242;</li><li>Kilkeel Fish Selling Company Limited: £12,594,253.</li></ul>

He said the defendants should pay back a total of £1,075,056:

<ul class="bulletList"><li>£150,813 against Charles Leslie McBride;</li><li>£224,348 against Charles Hubert McBride;</li><li>£498,506 against Leslie Clifford Girvan;</li><li>£10,613 against McBride Fishing Company Limited; </li><li>£190,776 against Kilkeel Fish Selling Company Limited. </li></ul>