Divers fined £18,000 each for removing relics from Scapa Flow wrecks

In what has been hailed as a unique court case, two divers have been fined £18,000 each for removing artifacts from the scuttled battleships and cruisers of the German Grand Fleet in Scapa Flow.

Gordon Meek, aged 67, of Carmunnock Road, Glasgow, and Robert Infante, 48, of Morris Avenue, Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, USA, each pleaded guilty at Kirkwall Sheriff Court today to the offences which took place between the October 8–12, 2012.

Pleas of not guilty from John Thornton, of Polrudden, Peedie Sea Loan, Kirkwall, and Simon Ball, 47, of Scutts Close, Lynchettematravers, Poole, Dorset, were accepted by Procurator Fiscal Sue Foard.

The case, which had originally been scheduled as a three-week jury trial but ended with the guilty pleas, is the first of its kind in Scotland where divers have been charged for removing artefacts from scheduled monuments without lawful authority.

The relics, removed from the wrecks of the SMS MarkGraf, SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm and SMS Konig and the SMS Coln, SMS Dresden, SMS Karlsruhe and SMS Brummer, included a bulkhead lantern frame, a steam pressure gauge, an electric ship’s bell, a chest microphone, two bulkhead lanterns and a portable lamp.

In passing sentence, Sheriff Andrew Berry paid credit to those who saw and reported the thefts and the police for acting so swiftly to secure the items.

He added: “If nothing else, I hope the fines I am imposing will convince other divers that to break the law in this way might be an expensive exercise.”