B2

JEFF DUCHARME
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL

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SAINT JOHN - A man who sold calms, which witnesses testified were contaminated and made them ill, was sentenced to 45 days in jail in Provincial Court Monday.

Brian Christopher Doughty, 38, of Musquash had pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Judge John J. Walsh found Doughty guilty of possessing and selling clams that were not properly tagged. That contravened conditions of his harvesting license. According to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, that charge was laid because proving that Doughty harvested the contaminated clams would have proved difficult.

From June 3 to 5, Doughty sold three buckets of clams worth a total of $160 in Saint John. Some of the people that bought the clams became ill since the clams were contaminated by paralytic shellfish poisoning.

The biotoxin builds up in the tissues of the shellfish and when a person eats the shellfish, they can become extremely ill and even die. The symptoms can begin within 10 minutes of eating a contaminated shellfish or 10 hours later. The symptoms normally begin with a tingling around the lips.

Doughty represented himself in the trial. Doughty didn't take the stand or call any witnesses on his behalf. He only presented his record of employment as proof that he wasn't employed as a commercial fisherman during July 2008 when the clams were sold, so he contended the conditions of his license do not apply and weren't broken.

The judge didn't accept Doughty's argument.

"In passing, I note that there was no evidence that the accused was in possession of clams harvested by someone else, which was also alleged as of his license conditions," Walsh noted in his decision. "The only reasonable inference is that he harvested the clams, from somewhere on an unknown date."