§ Mr. Masonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the number of persons convicted and the level of fines for salmon poaching on the river Esk and its estuary during 1982 and 1983.
§ Mr. MellorSalmon poaching may lead to conviction under the Theft Act 1965 or the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1975. The records available to us, which relate only to convictions under the latter, may be incomplete and do not reveal the place where the offence was committed or the kind of fish involved. They show, however, that in 1982 in the petty sessional division of Whitby Strand, nine persons were found guilty and fined an average of £59.