A MAN who has spent the past seven years battling marine authorities for the right to anchor his own boat on foreshore he owns at a Cornish quay has been found guilty of “carrying out a marine licensable activity without a licence” and now faces paying £20,000 costs.

We revealed last week that Dean Richards, 43, faced a two-year sentence if found guilty, despite his argument that the way he moors his 86ft barge using pin anchors was exempt from a licence.

The former banker keeps his former Royal Navy munitions barge on foreshore he bought at Point, between Truro and Falmouth, in 2017. This includes the seabed on which the boat sits, extending halfway across the creek at Point.

He plans to turn the barge into a carbon-positive home for himself and his eight-year-old son, who he co-parents.

But a jury at Truro Crown Court on Friday agreed with the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) that he needed a licence and found him guilty following a two-day trial.

Mr Richards was given a conditional discharge with Judge Simon Carr saying he had some sympathy with him, but not when it came to costs - which he suggested should be £20,000 -as he believed Mr Richards “self-inflicted” the trial at considerable cost to a cash-strapped government body.

Judge Carr said Mr Richards, 43, was “repeatedly misled” during communications with members of the MMO, which led him down a trail which ended in the court case. However, he said the matter should have been heard in a civil court and not in the crown court, and laid the blame on Mr Richards for pursuing a trial hearing.

The judge said he would not issue a criminal behaviour order for the removal of the boat as that was the sort of thing issued to people to stop them “drinking alcohol and urinating in Truro”.

A legal representative for the MMO told the judge there were concerns about the boat being there due to children using it for tombstoning.

Judge Carr suggested Mr Richards should pay £20,000 costs but gave him 14 days to see if he had the assets to pay. He added the costs were “self-inflicted” and told the jury it was a “very odd case” for them to be hearing in a crown court.

Mr Richards is now considering his next move, but set up a Crowdfunder page – ‘Stop anchoring boats being an imprisonable offence’ – just before the court case. He is hoping to raise £100,000 to help cover what he has had to spend so far, as well as for a possible appeal, which would need to go to the Supreme Court in London.

He says on the fundraiser: “Even if I am successful in court and manage to stop the MMO from implementing this, I am still facing further large expenses with Cornwall Council who are now saying I need planning permission for my anchors, despite granting me a Certificate of Lawfulness to moor boats on my foreshore. I am currently appealing their enforcement.

Mr Richards, who works as a carer for adults with additional needs, added that he was also facing civil proceedings for nuisance and trespass from a local property owner, which he claims is “a mechanism to gain an injunction to make me move”.

He has spent years researching marine rules and regulations in a bid to defend what he says is his legal right, and argues that prosecution would set a “very dangerous precedent” for others in similar circumstances.

Mr Richards has accused both the MMO and Cornwall Council of making a series of U-turns, which has led to a huge amount of stress and financial impact.

“I have been fighting this on my own for some time, unable to afford a marine law expert, researching and preparing everything myself but still spending a considerable amount of my own money in the process,” he said.

A similar case in Bembridge on the Isle of Wight in 2020 saw around 100 members of a houseboat community fight an MMO investigation, resulting in the threat of legal action being dropped.

His end goal is “to protect the right to anchor for everyone in the UK, and stop the requirement for expensive marine licence applications to deposit your anchor on the seabed”.

“I get people have paid seven figures for their house,” added Mr Richards, who is currently sleeping on a sofa at his parents’ house in Truro. “I get what I look like and I get this boat looks a mess because all my time, money and resources are going into fighting them as opposed to going into making this look beautiful.

“But if you buy a waterside property, expect boats in front of your window.”

Mr Richards’ Crowdfunder appeal can be found at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/stop-anchoring-boats-being-an-imprisonable-offence