A British trawler suspected of illegally dredging scallops in French waters has been impounded and its skipper summoned to appear in court, local maritime officials said Wednesday.
The trawler, the Van Dijck, was ordered to berth at Ouistreham on the Normandy coast following an on-board inspection earlier this week on the edge of France’s territorial waters, 12 nautical miles (about 22km) offshore.
The French authorities ordered the captain to dump all 17 tonnes of scallops on board, a catch worth hundreds of thousands of euros (pounds/dollars) in the retail market.
Prosecutors in the nearby town of Caen on Wednesday ordered the trawler’s captain to appear in court on May 15 on charges of fishing in an unauthorised zone and switching off the boat’s tracking mechanism.
The boat’s owners were ordered to pay bail of 50,000 euros if they want the trawler to leave Ouistreham before the court hearing.
The incident follows clashes in October 2012, when the crews on five British trawlers claimed to have been surrounded and stoned by a flotilla of 40 French boats while attempting to gather scallops from beds off the port of Le Havre.
The British fishermen, who called on the government to send the Royal Navy to protect them, claimed they had been fishing legally in international waters.
Their French counterparts accuse them of regularly encroaching into their territorial waters and undermining efforts to preserve stocks.
The Van Dijck is the third British boat to have been detained and accused of illegal fishing in French waters in five months following two similar interceptions in September.
A judgement on whether the first boat to be detained did actually breach the rules is due on January 16.
Scallop war reignited as British boat impounded in France
