This vessel is licensed for static pots/creel and not for scallops, so an apparent-fishing score here cannot be shown to be the banned seabed gear. The gear actually worked on this date is not established.
Every CAUGHT case is assessed on three independent questions, and
the weakest of the three decides. A case reads CAUGHT only when all three are
established and a person has reviewed it.
Activitystrong
Was it fishing, here, and then?
2 separate fishing bouts inside the closure — a vessel on passage makes one.
Vesselstrong
What gear does this boat actually use?
This vessel holds a shellfish (pot/creel) entitlement on the MMO licence list, and holds no scallop entitlement.
This closure protects the seabed and does not prohibit static pots, so a vessel entitled to work them — and not entitled to tow a scallop dredge — cannot be shown by an apparent-fishing score to have used the banned gear.
The entitlement is read from the list for 2026-08, the monthly list in force when this event occurred, not from today's snapshot — unchanged on every list since 2025-01. The flags move — 42 of 4,933 hulls changed this entitlement at least once over the archive window — so the date matters.
This is an ENTITLEMENT, not an identification of the gear worked on this date. It establishes that the accusation cannot be made out, not what the vessel was doing.
Ruleunknown
What was prohibited there, then, for that gear?
Rule reviewed and NOT resolved: A breach cannot be established for cases OUTSIDE the specified area, which is where all but three of ours sit. Paragraph 4(c) permits Scottish or Danish seine netting there with no length limit and no permit, so establishing that a vessel towed gear is not enough — it has to be shown NOT to have been seine netting, which no obtainable source records. INSIDE the specified area the position is different and the case may be decidable on gear alone (see `specified_area`), but our zones are not keyed to that boundary, so the engine cannot yet tell the two apart. Kept unresolved deliberately: the distinction would make this closure STRICTER for some cases, which is a promotion path and Angus's gate.
Check it yourself
Nothing here asks to be taken on trust. The full report sets out every source,
every measurement and everything we could not establish.
What this is, and what it isn't. A CAUGHT case is a reason to look,
not a verdict, and this page is not a finding that an offence took place. Vessel names
and identifiers come from publicly broadcast AIS data, which can be wrong or
mis-attributed. Most fishing inside UK marine protected areas is currently
legal; CAUGHT only flags places where a rule already exists.
If you own or operate this vessel and believe it has been mischaracterised, write to
contact@caught.org.uk — corrections are
welcomed and we publish them. Your right of reply is set out in our
terms.