Unlawful Fish Purchase Leads to Conviction
Tuesday, 22 February 2000

Offshore Fisheries International Pty Ltd and its Managing Director, Michael Sperou, pleaded guilty in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Monday 14 February 2000 to purchasing fish not taken pursuant to a licence. The Company pleaded guilty to the further offence of processing fish whilst unregistered.

The offences were discovered when Fisheries Officers, conducting surveillance activities, followed Ross Morgan, 72, recreational fisher of Broadview, as he drove from his home on the morning of 2 February 1999.

He was followed to Field Street Adelaide and to the fish processing premises of Offshore Fisheries International Pty Ltd. Morgan was apprehended in the process of delivering to an Offshore Fisheries International Pty Ltd employee, 28 kilograms of King George whiting fillets and 10 kilograms of garfish fillets.

The total value of the fish was $539. Sperou, 36 of Mitcham, together with the Company were convicted and ordered to pay fines and cost totalling almost $10,000.

This hearing was subsequent to the guilty plea entered by Ross Morgan on 3 November 1999 for the offence of selling fish to Offshore Fisheries International Pty Ltd without a licence. Morgan was fined a total of $1,000.

Manager Fisheries Compliance Brian Hemming said, "the purchasing of fish from a recreational fisher by fish processors sends the wrong kind of message to the community. There are well established rules that apply to the buying and selling of fish and those people who break those rules are cheating.