It's not been a good period for the reputation of the Scottish fishing industry. A number of high profile court cases have exposed serious examples of 'overfishing' by a large proportion of the Scottish pelagic fleet. Seventeen skippers have been found guilty of catching more than their quotas permitted after a £47.5m scam was unravelled by Operation Sea Dog. Inspectors from the

Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency monitored computer screens in the main hall of Shetland Catch's processing plant to make sure boats were not landing too many herring and mackerel, but the screens had been altered using a computer program which falsely showed lower catches than what had really been landed.

Defendants in the criminal trials held at the High Court in Edinburgh have submitted pleas for leniency, some explaining that their actions were a principled stance against the procedure of dumping fish at sea and also an attempt to help a local processor stay in business in the face of overseas competition. But the judge involved in the case pointed out that fishermen were making substantial sums of money via the practice; twelve skippers made profits of six-figure sums. The EU rules which the skippers had broken were part of conservation measures to protect fish stocks, but High Court judge Lord Turnbull suggested the rules were deliberately ignored in pursuit of profit.

For a very interesting debate on the scam, have a look at the Daily Record's story and see the comments below the article.

Below is a list of the skippers and the amounts which they have been ordered to pay in compensation: note that these sums amount to a small fraction of the total scam amount.

Hamish Slater, 52, of Fraserburgh – £425,900
Robert Polson, 48, of Lerwick – £371,300
Victor Buschini, 51, of Poulton Le Flyde, Lancashire – £341,000
Alexander Masson, 65, of Fraserburgh – £283,000
John Irvine, 68, of Braeside, Symbister – £236,000
William Williamson, 64, of Symbister, Whalsay – £213,200.
Laurence Irvine, 66, of Symbister, Whalsay – £210,700
Alexander Wiseman, 60, of Banff – £196,000
David Hutchison, 66 of Symbister – £140,900
Thomas Eunson, 56, of Symbister – £140,500.
Allister Irvine, 63, of Symbister – £120,600
Gary Williamson, 52, of Symbister, Whalsay – £118,500
George Henry, 60, of Clousta, Bixta – £51,300
John Stewart, 56, of Lerwick – £41,300
George Anderson, 55, of Symbister – £40,700.
Colin Leask, 38, of Symbister, Whalsay – £12,000
Allen Anderson, 55, of Symbister – £2700.