Source: Dilip Sarkar / Angling Trust
Fishing without permission comes under Schedule 1 of the Theft Act 1968 and is, therefore, a criminal, offence. It is not the Environment Agency’s responsibility to deal with this but that of the police. Understandably, this is not an area of law in which police officers are generally trained, so the Angling Trust are in the early stages of liaising with all 43 forces to educate officers regarding their responsibility.
To date the ATr have concentrated, due to VBS and Operation CLAMPDOWN 2 (OCD2), on forces in SE England, all of which are engaged on joint VBS/EA/police patrols in that region and in support of OCD2. Unfortunately the police’s overall understanding remains inconsistent so in an effort to resolve this, last year the Angling Trust uploaded the ‘Elementary Guide to Angling Law & Fisheries Enforcement’ to the Police Online Knowledge Area (POLKA) – making this simple guide available to every police officer in England. This, however, relies upon an officer searching that database for information, so the upload is not a cure-all – but there is now an answer.
Every offence which the police are duty bound to deal with has a unique Home Office Code and now there is a Code for Theft of Fishing Rights: 116/11.
If anglers quote this when reporting incidents the police will understand that they must deal with the matter, rather than misinterpret the situation as a civil matter and/or attempt to pass the job over to the EA. Provision of the Code will mean that from the initial stage the call taker will understand that this is a police matter, and police officers responding can check the relevant instructions.
