Trio pays for illegal paua

Three men were fined a total of $4800 and ordered to forfeit a boat, outboard motor and diving gear after they admitted plundering almost 300 undersized paua from Northland waters.
Shane Edward Heller, 44, of Manurewa, Auckland, Walter Valentine Lloyd, 48, from Ruawai, and Kent Dixon Heller, 30, of Whangarei, appeared in the Whangarei District Court yesterday for sentencing.
The trio had pleaded guilty to joint charges of possessing undersized paua and possessing excess paua. Shane Heller and Lloyd also pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing paua in a vessel containing underwater breathing apparatus.
A fourth accused, Jason Toko Chapman, 29, from Dargaville, has pleaded not guilty to possessing undersized paua and possessing excess paua and will appear in the court on April 4.
The four were charged after honorary fisheries officers met their boat as it pulled into Kowharewa Bay, near Ngunguru, on October 25, last year.
The fisheries officers told Shane Heller, who was skipper of the boat, that they wanted to check their catch.
However, Heller backed the boat away from the shore, saying he was waiting for the boat ramp to clear.
The officers noticed suspicious activity at the back of the boat and a member of the public reported seeing somebody throwing paua from the rear of the vessel.
A search uncovered 298 paua that had been taken from nearby Goat Island.
All the paua was under the 125mm legal size, with the largest being 106mm.
In their defence the men said they were gathering the seafood to feed their families, although they did not have a customary permit that would have allowed them to have taken the shellfish for traditional customary purposes.
Defence lawyer Kelly Johnson said the trio had been up front with fisheries officers, had admitted the charges and deserved their fines to be at the lower end of the scale for such offending.
Mr Johnson said the three had not set out to deliberately get paua, but had got it after finding cray holes they were diving to only had undersized crayfish in them.
"They did take them, but they didn't go out there with the intention to get them and didn't use (diving) tanks to get them," he said.
Judge Russell Johnson fined the trio $1000 each and ordered that they each pay $130 court costs, on the charge of possessing excess paua and $600 each, with court costs of $130 each, on the charge of possessing undersized paua.
He discharged Shane Heller and Lloyd without penalty on the count of possessing paua in a vessel containing underwater breathing apparatus.
Judge Johnson also ordered that Shane Lloyd's six metre boat, a 140 horsepower outboard motor and diving equipment found on the boat, be forfeited to the Crown.