have had their lobster licences revoked follow through on threatened legal action.

But Environment Minister Irving Pearman yesterday refused to back down and said it was "incorrect and maliciously misleading'' for the three lobster fishermen to claim that they had been given permission to alter their pots.

However he said that while their licences to catch lobsters have been revoked, they will still be able to apply again next season.

During a Press conference, Mr. Pearman said the claim that the fishermen had been given permission by fisheries officials to adjust the wire on the escape hatches of their pots was not true.

"There was no approval given, tacit or otherwise,'' he said. "It could not have happened.'' However one of the fishermen, Delvin Bean, has vowed with his brother Alan Bean Jr. to take Government to court over the issue.

"If they want to shut us down for three months, we are going to sue them for the $70,000 each of our catches would have totalled at the end of the year.'' Mr. Bean said that he and his brother were taking legal advice.

But Mr. Pearman said he had investigated the allegation and found no evidence to support it.

Moreover, he pointed out that of the 11 lobster fishermen represented at a September meeting where the issue was thrashed out, only four came away with the view that they could modify their pots.

He said fisheries officials had pulled close to 60 percent of the pots in the West End.

"Having pulled these pots which were managed by 11 lobster pot fishermen, we only found four who had modified their pots. The others had not modified their pots.'' Mr. Pearman said only the Minister had the authority to make any changes.

"It has to be considered a privilege to be one of those who is part of an industry that we estimate has an annual gross value of well in excess of half a million dollars and this is only 20 people.

"The remainder do not have that privilege and with that privilege goes responsibility and that is what is lacking here.

"These traps are the public's property. The fishermen do pay a deposit in case some get lost or damaged, but they are the Government's and public's property,'' he said. "(No lobster fisherman) has any right to alter a trap in any way unless it is agreed to across the board.'' Pearman denies claim Mr. Pearman said when he met with lobster fishermen they never mentioned that they were having predators entering the pots.

Head Fisheries warden David Garland said that this claim was a red herring.

"This is all innuendo,'' he said. "You have got to understand that they have to return statistics on a weekly basis. They are supposed to put in there how many fish are in the traps and how many lobsters are there.

"And they have not mentioned any of this in their statistics to start with.

This is drummed up.'' In Monday's Royal Gazette , fisherman Mr. Alan Bean, one of the trio who had licenses taken away, said fisheries officials had allowed fishermen to reduce the size of the hatches using the wire.

He claimed the traps were not standardised from the start because very few of the escape hatches were actually cut to the standard size of 2 1/4 inches.

But senior fisheries officer Dr. Brian Luckhurst said that in 1996 former Environment Minister Pamela Gordon decided that the width of the escape gaps would be 2 1/4 inches.

This information was sent to each licence holder so that they could make the necessary modifications to the existing gear.

"They were also requested to inform us when they had made those modifications. Nothing changed from that point forward so when the gear went out it was all supposed to have been correct.

"All of the gear was to have been checked before being handed out to the fishermen in August to commence this season to made sure that every escape gap was correctly cut.

"...if fishermen noticed that the gaps were incorrect, they could have come to us and said they were incorrect.''