Bajan fisherman facing 3 months jail

The captain of a Barbadian fishing vessel which had a catch of 100 pounds of flying fish while fishing off north Tobago on Wednesday morning, was ordered yesterday to pay a fine of $5,000 or serve three months imprisonment with hard labour by a Scarborough magistrate.

Livingstone Clarke, who was represented by attorney Neville Gibbes, was sentenced by Senior Magistrate Annette McK enzie in the Scarborough First Court. Charges of fishing in this country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) without the relevant permit were laid by Detective Alicia Piggott. Clarke pleaded guilty. The Bardadian however did not tell the court about the flying fish catch; he said all he had was a dolphin. “Why are you lying to me?” the Magistrate asked, after Prosecutor Ag Insp Fitzroy Gray presented evidence that one dolphin and 100 pounds of flying fish were seized aboard the Bajan fishing boat, “Shelly.” “Because the minute I catch you lying, I take a certain course. I  would tend not to believe anything you say,” the Magistrate told Clarke, who, in turn, apologised: “I am sorry about that.

Clarke told the court that he left Barbados Tuesday morning and started fishing after he had gone some 70 miles. He claimed that a bolt in the alternator in the engine broke, and as night fell he decided to wait until daybreak to try to remove the broken pieces.  “It took me a long time to get out the piece of alternator. I had one dolphin; I caught it in Barbados waters,” he told the Magistrate. The court heard that Coast Guard officers led by Petty Officer Gabriel Reviero were on patrol aboard TTS Crown Point when, acting on information received, they went to an area about 22 miles north of The Sisters rocks, off Parlatuvier on Tobago’s north-east coast. There they saw the Bajan boat engaged in fishing activities. “We told him (Clarke) to pull up his net; he was fishing. He did not tell us anything. It is when we were taking the evidence later at the Coast Guard base that he told us about the alternator,” the Coast Guard officer testified.