French trawler skipper Jerome Vicquelin has been fined £5,400 for breaching fishery regulations after spraying excrement over a fishery protection vessel’s crew.

Magistrates at Portland, Dorset also ordered Vicquelin to pay £50 each to the sailors and £100 to Lt Andrew Floyd who fell back into his dinghy after the trawler’s rope ladder broke.

The crew were making a routine inspection in the Channel from the fishery protection vessel Severn.