Two fishermen from Northern Ireland have been fined £4,500 each for breaching king scallop fishing regulations.

Father and son Tom and John Banford, who are co-owners of the Aquaria fishing vessel (N511), appeared in court via video link from Northern Ireland and both admitted exceeding the limit for scallops retained on the ship.

John Banford, the skipper of the Aquaria, declared a catch of 484.25kg but the actual catch was 577.6kg.

High Bailiff Jayne Hughes also made an order that the value of the catch, £1,121, be retained by the Manx Fisheries department.

Prosecuting advocate Barry Swain told the court that sea fisheries officers were on patrol south of the Calf of Man on February 6, 2020, when they boarded the Aquaria.

John Banford, the skipper, was on board but his father Tom was not.

The boat had been fishing for king scallops in Manx waters, for which they had a licence.

John Banford told officers that they had 13 bags of scallops on board from the day’s fishing and that they were on their final tow before heading back to Northern Ireland.

Mr Swain said that a 10% margin was allowed when declaring a catch so it could be 10% lower or higher than the figure declared.

Banford said he had recorded the bags as weighing 37.3kg each, however when fisheries officers inspected two of them they found that they weighed between 43 and 50kg so they were over the 10% margin of error allowed.

The overall catch of 577.6kg was 19.2% above the 484.25kg which was declared.

Mr Swain said that both Banfords, whose ages were not given in court, were seasoned fishermen and owned other vessels.

The court heard that their Manx licence was suspended for one month after the incident.

Defence advocate Peter Taylor represented both men and said that the offence was well over 18 months old now and that no decision to prosecute had been taken until July this year, which he said could be taken as an indication that the offence was not at the higher end of the scale.

Mr Taylor said that John Banford had been fishing for 15 years and his vessel had been boarded many times without any issues.

The advocate said that the crew had been fishing in a different type of sea bed on the day of the incident and this had led to the skipper making a genuine mistake in his estimation of the catch.

’They have since installed a motion compensation set of scales at a cost of £4,000 since the incident,’ said Mr Taylor.

’It was a one-off, on one boat, on one day. They weren’t in a restricted area, it was a pure mistake that they under-declared.’

High Bailiff Jayne Hughes ordered that both men, who live at Newcastle Road, Kilkeel, County Down, pay the fine by December 10.

They must also pay £50 prosecution costs.

Last week we reported a similar case involving two more fishermen from Northern Ireland.

Stephen Shiels and Basil Wills were each fined £6,500.