Morecambe Bay Cockle Picking Trial.

I have been following the Morecambe Bay cockle picking trial. Since the initial flurry of enthusiasm from the press, there has been very little written about it. There are three people on trial:

• Lin Liang Ren
  Who denies 21 counts of manslaughter. He also denies perverting the course of justice and facilitation.
• Zhao Xiao Qing
  Who denies perverting the course of justice and facilitation.
• Lin Mu Yong
  Who denies facilitation.

Yesterday it was alleged that the government department responsible (North Western and North Wales Sea Fisheries Committee) for issuing fishing permits had known that the workers in Morecambe Bay were working illegally. They denied it. The BBC news report goes on to say:

The court was told the Department for Work and Pensions allegedly contacted the NWNWSFC a month before the tragedy, to say that at least 30% of the permits which had been issued had been wrongly given to people who were already on state benefit. Also, it said that all of those cockling permits had contained bogus or fake national insurance numbers.
Full report from the BBC here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lancashire/4500042.stm

I have put my other posts on this here: http://graham.doel.org/index.php/category/morecambe/cockle-picking-disaster/