Parris brothers deny using illegal fish pot -- But Police claim video evidence
A video surveillance tape the Crown says shows brothers James and Noel Parris using an illegal "arrowhead'' fish pot was entered as evidence in their trial yesterday.
The pair -- James, 63, of Harrington Sound Road, Smith's Parish and Noel, 65, of North Shore Road, Pembroke -- have denied using illegal fish pots.
In court yesterday James Parris put up a fiery defence against Crown Counsel Graveney Bannister's allegation that he altered a Government fish pot to illegal specifications.
He told the prosecutor: "You appear to be extremely naive because you don't have a clue.'' But the prosecution's expert witness, Dr. Bryan Lockhurst, testified legal spiny lobster pots had specific features such as a rectangular shape and a rigid entrance door which allows fish to escape.
The illegal fish pot Police pulled from the water was called an "arrowhead'', he continued, and had none of the Government pot features.
James Parris denied the pot belonged to him and his brother and claimed the fish pot Government issued them for the lobster season was returned to the Fisheries Department.
The video footage caught the brothers manipulating an Arrowhead fish pot on February 14, claimed Mr. Bannister.
The footage showed the pair pulling up a trap, resetting it and dumping it again. In the footage, the trap does not bear legal identification flags.
Defence lawyer Saul Froomkin applied for a dismissal of the case shortly after lunch, when he targeted a 15 to 30-minute time span between the time when Harbour Radio received a call from Police to target the area with radar and when they finally marked a boat's position.
While no other boats were in the area at the time, radar could not confirm if the boat in question was F260, the brother's boat, he said.
Mr. Froomkin also questioned how Police found and recovered the arrowhead fish pot.
But Sgt. Gary Venning of the Marine Police testified he stopped the brothers as they left the area to find out their identities and allowed them to continue on after a safety check of their vessel.
Later, while watching the video, Sgt. Venning said he guessed where the brothers dropped the fish pot by calculating their vessel's travel time and speed and recovered the arrowhead fish pot at that spot.
Video footage also showed the fish pot had a pointed top, like arrowhead pots, while Government authorised spiny lobster pots are rectangular.
James Parris said the fish pot in the footage had a pointed top because it had been damaged.
He added that two days before being recorded by Police, the brothers tried to recover that same fish pot but found it was stuck.
He said they continued on and emptied their remaining nine pots, then came back to recover the first pot but still could not surface the trap.
On the day they were recorded, they had returned and managed to recover the pot.
James Parris, a fisherman for about 30 years, said the pots were often damaged in recovery and the pot in question was a very badly damaged Government pot to begin with.
The winter before the incident, 26 spiny lobster pots were lost in a hurricane and Government reissued old pots, he claimed.
"They were in quite bad shape,.'' he said.
Police testified that they searched the Parris' residences and found fish pot materials such as rolls of wire and other items.
James Parris Noel Parris