WILD fish throughout the South West could have been wiped out by disease after Britain's largest coarse fish breeder put 3,000 baby fish into a lake at Cotswold Water Park, a court heard.

However, Cheltenham Magistrates heard, the five to six inches long bream all turned out to be fit and healthy and there was in fact no danger.

Simon Hughes, owner of Riverfield Carp Farm, Marden, Kent, pleaded not guilty to breaching the Salmon and Freshwatwer Fisheries Act by placing 3,000 bream into the Cotswold Water Park's Wickwater Lake without the consent of the Environ-ment Agency.

Mrs Janet Frederick, prosecuting, said South Cerney Angling Club had ordered £2,820 worth of baby bream for their fishery at the Water Park.

Hughes' company, the largest of its kind in the UK, said it would apply for the permission to put the fish into the lake.

But the firm told fisheries officers that the bream were going into a lake from which they could not escape.

They also sent 29 speci-mens for post mortem to check they were healthy.

Mr Philip Cookson, defending, argued that the legal responsibility for obtaining the certificate belonged to the angling club.

Although Mr Hughes' employees unloaded the fish it was club members who actually put them into the lake.

The magistrates rejected the defence argument that there was no case for Mr Hughes to answer,

They found him guilty and fined him £250 and ordered him to pay costs of £2,863.

The maximum fine for the offence is £2,500.