Solicitor loses boat over scallop haul

A solicitor has lost his $40,000 boat and dive equipment after being convicted for taking several times his daily limit of scallops.

Michael Owen Robertson, of Mt Albert, Auckland, was also fined $750 for taking excess scallops and another $100 because some of them were undersized.

Auckland recreational district compliance manager Matt Cowan said fisheries officers boarded Robertson's boat near Kawau Island in the Hauraki Gulf on January 6 this year.

They found 388 scallops on his boat that had been collected by him and two other divers. Forty-eight of them were undersized. The daily limit for divers taking scallops is 20 per person.

Mr Cowan told Warkworth District Court yesterday that Robertson, 40, had been measuring the scallops for size once they were in the boat when laws only permitted measuring on the sea bed.

He said Robertson's boat was approached as part of routine patrols in the Hauraki Gulf which had been intensified last summer and would remain a focus this summer.

It was particularly disappointing to discover the offender was a solicitor, Mr Cowan said.

As well as having to forfeit his Ramco fishing boat, Robertson also lost a dive tank, wetsuit, flippers and other diving equipment.

He is required to go through a process of applying to the Crown to have his gear returned.

- NZPA