REVEALED: The faces behind Tasmania’s illegal fishing
From a mother and son facing court over untagged rock lobster to a man who still owes $1m+ for his part in an abalone trafficking ring — here are the faces behind Tassie’s illegal fishing >>
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MORE than 730 infringement notices for fisheries offences were dished out by Tasmanian police in 2020, an average of more than 60 a month.
A Tasmania Police spokesman said of the 737 notices issued, 581 were a caution, 71 were later terminated by police and the remaining 85 had fines attached to them.
Fisheries offences refers to those related specifically to fishing, inland fishing and related offences, while marine and safety legislation is excluded.
A Department of Justice spokesman said the value of fisheries offences infringement notices referred for collection was $82,912.60.
READ MORE: Dozens of live lobsters stolen from boat at Margate
Fifty-three offences were reported for the month of January this year.
In October, police seized a commercial fishing vessel and charged three men with unlawful commercial rock lobster fishing.
Police said they would allege the fishermen were misreporting catch, fishing inside marine reserves, retaining undersized rock lobster and unlawfully selling rock lobster.
Two commercial rock lobster fishermen — a 29-year-old from Seven Mile Beach and 26-year-old from Sandy Bay, and a 52-year-old man from Acacia Hills were charged with trafficking in fish.
Information on bag and possession limits can be found in the Recreational Sea Fishing Guide available at Service Tasmania or through the Tas Fish app.
Illegal fishing can be reported to Fishwatch on 0427 655 557.
Today, The Mercury takes a look at the faces behind Tasmania’s illegal fishing.
David Wei Meng Lee
The former Gold Coast businessman still owes Tasmania over $1 million in fines more than 15 years after it was imposed.
He was busted trading up to 10,000 black market abalones between 2001 and 2002 in a large-scale and sophisticated operation and was found guilty in 2006.
At the time, sentencing judge Justice Shan Tennant acknowledged at the time of imposing the sentence there was “little prospect” of the fine being paid.
Lee, then 48, was one of 17 people charged in the abalone trafficking ring and was given the $1.22 million penalty — one of the state’s largest ever fines — for his role after being found guilty of five counts of illegal possession of fish.
He received a jail sentence of 15 months, with 12 months suspended and he was ordered to pay $20,000 of his penalty within 14 days of his release from prison.
It was revealed in 2019 that Lee had left the country.
Mark William Eather
High profile fisherman Mark Eather was fined more than $177,000 and was banned from holding a fishing licence in Tasmania after being sentenced in 2017 for trafficking rock lobster.
Eather, 58, originally pleaded not guilty to trafficking in 605kg of untagged rock lobster between January 2011 and October 2011 in Boomer Bay.
The fisherman of more than 30 years, who was well-known in the industry as a champion of ethical and sustainable fishing, had fought the case through Tasmanian courts for more than five years.
The Crown had argued Eather engaged in trafficking because he did not hold an appropriate fishing licence at the time and the fish were not tagged.
The charges against him were thrown out by Justice Shan Tennant in June 2015, with a ruling that no jury could have found him guilty.
But an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions was successful in overturning that decision, with a retrial ordered.
Eather changed his plea to guilty which he said was “purely to cease this ludicrous case”.
He was convicted and fined $7500, with a special penalty also applied which amounted to a further $169,666.
Patricia Ann McAuley
The southern Tasmanian woman was “caught in the net” of her son-in-law’s illegal fishing activities was fined $11,490 in 2019.
The then 75-year-old from Dunalley was found guilty of two counts of possessing fish for commercial purposes without having a fish processing licence, possessing excess abalone, unlawfully possessing rock lobster, and possessing unmarked and untagged rock lobster.
The charges related to 21 abalone and 24 rock lobster in her possession in September 2011 at a fish processing factory McCauley was responsible for at Boomer Bay.
McCauley and her son-in-law, former fisherman Mark Eather, were both charged following a covert police operation in 2011.
Eather was charged with trafficking rock lobster and was convicted and fined more than $177,000.
Steven John Brear
The serial abalone poacher was jailed in 2015 for two years and fined $180,000 for three raids on Tasmanian fisheries.
Brear, 45, from the Sydney suburb of Lanvale, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in Hobart to one count of trafficking in fish and two counts of the unlawful possession of fish.
The court heard in June 2013, he flew to Tasmania and hired a car which was later intercepted by police who found 245 shucked greenlip abalone and 11 blacklip abalone.
In August 2014, he was pulled over on Tasmania’s East Coast and found 168 blacklip abalone.
And in January 2015, Brear and another man were found by police near Marrawah on the North-West Coast.
They were intercepted after a surveillance operation and 862 blacklip abalone were found in one of their vehicles.
The court heard Brear had convictions for similar offences in Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales from 1998 onwards.
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