Illegal trawling trial concludes after 10-month hiatus

Wednesday, 14 July 2021

Amaltal and skipper Charles Shuttleworth are on trial for an incident in 2018 where the vessel Apollo is alleged to have fished in a closed area as defined by the South Pacific Regional Fishing Management Organisation. (File photo)

Fishing company Amaltal has maintained its position that a vessel found trawling in an unauthorised area was the fault of the skipper and not the company.

Amaltal, the deepwater division of Talley's Group, and skipper Charles Shuttleworth are on trial in the Nelson District Court for allegedly trawling in an area closed to fishing in the Lord Howe Rise in the Tasman Sea – from an incident in May 2018.

The judge-alone trial concluded on Wednesday, following a 10-month hiatus after the prosecution presented its case, and an application for the charges against Shuttleworth to be dismissed was thrown out by Judge David Ruth in September 2020.

The Amaltal Apollo left Nelson in May 2018, on a trip to fish for orange roughy and alfonsino. During the trip, there was confusion over the area the vessel was fishing in.

* Skipper responsible for checking fishing permits, Amaltal says

* Fishing company and skipper on trial for alleged unlawful trawling in Tasman Sea

There were discrepancies between the information supplied by the Fisheries NZ observer services unit, that in the high seas fishing permit on board and what was available on the vessel’s sea plotter.

From May 12 to May 21 2018, the Apollo ended up making 14 trawls in an unauthorised area as defined by the South Pacific Regional Fishing Management Organisation (SPRFMO).

Judge David Ruth brought the trial to a close on Wednesday, with a reserved decision to be made pending final written submissions from the prosecution and defence. (file photo)

On Wednesday the defence for Amaltal presented their case, with Talley's operations manager Andy Smith giving evidence.

Before Smith took the stand, lawyer for Amaltal Jonathan Eaton QC outlined the broad position for the defence.

Eaton said getting down to the nuts and bolts of the case, “this was an error of Shuttleworth’s, of his own making”.

He said in a situation where a skipper had breached specific instructions, there was a strong argument to say that person was no longer acting on behalf of that company.

“If he was acting contrary to express instructions, was he acting on behalf of Amaltal when he was carrying out illegal trawls?”

In giving his evidence to the court, Smith said before the trip to the Lord Howe Rise, a briefing was held in his office with Shuttleworth, vessel manager Hamish Tijsen and long-time Amaltal Apollo skipper Guy Duggan.

As well as going over the complexities of fishing in that area, the focus of the meeting was to help Shuttleworth understand and carefully check where he was able to fish according to his high seas permit, he said.

When asked what went wrong on the trip, Smith said it was a case of Shuttleworth not checking his high seas permit as instructed.

“Charlie didn’t listen to our instructions, he didn’t check the coordinates on SeaPlot … the skipper needs to know where he is.”

He said while skippers would have conversations with observers on the boat from time to time, they should never take advice from them – and if they were unsure of their plotting or their high seas permit they were under instructions to call the company vessel manager directly.

“Charlie should have called us, it’s as simple as that.”

In his cross-examination, lawyer acting for MPI Jackson Webber asked Smith about Shuttleworth’s experience as a skipper.

Smith said Shuttleworth was experienced on the high seas, although he had only been with Talley's for about a year at the time of the incident, and had not fished on the Lord Howe Rise before.

Webber also asked Smith whether there could have been any confusion about the way closed-off zones were portrayed in different areas on Shuttleworth’s SeaPlot system, and why out-of-date information regarding closed-off areas had been kept on the plotter during the trip.

“Skippers don’t tend to delete anything, it’s like a diary,” Smith said. “That’s why everything gets left on there – you can turn [plot layers] on and off, and you should be able to go about your job without confusion.

”What he was supposed to do was check the coordinates against the high seas permit. For that area there would be 10 or 20 layers of plots. If he took the time to check the coordinates of the permit, it would have been perfectly clear.”

Judge David Ruth brought the trial to a close on Wednesday, and said a reserved judgement would be given pending the final written submissions from the prosecution and defence.