A COURT has fined ten anglers almost £2,000 between them for fishing without a licence. 

Offenders included a teenager from Southampton and two men who travelled from the East Midlands to the south coast to fish. Others came from Greater London and Oxford.

All ten were reported to court by enforcement officers from the Environment Agency on the Rivers Itchen and Test and two other local spots between last May and August. 

Four of the men were caught at the same stretch of the Itchen in Winchester in May.

Hajri Karoshi, of Yeftly Drive, Oxford, pleaded guilty to two offences. The 53-year-old was fined £105 for fishing without a licence, and doing so during the annual close season, which restricts fishing between March and June. Karoshi had to pay costs of £135.

Likewise, Astrit Veshi and Andon Xhika, also from Oxford, fished the same part of the Itchen with no licence and when restrictions applied. Veshi, 49, of Rivermead Road, was found guilty and fined £220 for each offence.

READ MORE: Numerous rats in Winchester city centre spark health concerns

Xhika, 36, of Cranmer Road, received £90 fines for each charge. The Angling Trust helped the Environment Agency bring all three men to court, where they were each told to pay £135 in costs.

Neculai Mocanu, of Hounslow Road, Feltham, west London, pleaded guilty to fishing in the close season. He was fined £40, with another £135 to pay in costs. 

Mocanu was caught by an Environment Agency officer a week after the other three, as was Petro Petrascu, of New Chapel Square, also in Feltham. The 47-year-old admitted fishing illegally and fined £330, paying £135 in costs.

Further down the Itchen at Eastleigh, 19-year-old Joshua Cooper, of Warren Avenue, Shirley Warren, Southampton, was found guilty of fishing without a licence at the end of May. His fine was £220. He also had to pay costs of £135.

Back on the river, William Manning, 27, of Sleaford Road, Beckingham, Lincolnshire, pleaded guilty having no licence to fish on the Test at Nursling in Southampton in June. He was fined £95. Costs against him were £135.

On the same day, Patrick Taylor was also caught fishing on the Test at Totton. The 25-year-old, of Harlaxton Road, Grantham, Lincolnshire, was fined £220. There was £135 in costs to pay.

Namesake Adam Taylor didn’t have a licence either at a Fareham fishery the following month. The 27-year-old, of London Road, Ashford, Middlesex, was fined £220. His bill for costs was £135.

Oakley Bedford admitted fishing illegally as well. The 23-year-old, from Beaufort Road, Havant, was given a fine of £128 after he went to a local lake in August last year. Bedford was also made to pay costs of £135.

At a hearing in Swindon on January 8, magistrates also ruled the men should pay a combined £792 in victim surcharges, ensuring that offenders hold some responsibility towards the cost of supporting victims and witnesses.