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After a trial at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, Greenhowe was convicted on 21 April 2026 and fined £1,000 for the dolphin incident and £1,500 for the pilot whales. The findings rested on eyewitness evidence, video footage and expert testimony. The sheriff rejected Greenhowe’s explanations that he was surveying the breakwater on the first date and could not initially see the whales on the second. He concluded that the vessel was driven through a known dolphin foraging area, and straight towards the whales, without regard for the disruption caused. Leave to appeal against the sentence was refused, but he was allowed to challenge the convictions on restricted grounds.
Dolphin and pilot whale disturbance convictions against Aberdeen sea life tour operator Richard James Greenhowe have been upheld by the Sheriff Appeal Court, which refused his appeal on 3 November 2026. Greenhowe, owner and skipper of the sailing vessel Seacab, was found to have deliberately or recklessly disturbed the animals during two separate incidents in July 2023. On 22 July 2023, dolphins were feeding around the north breakwater at Aberdeen Harbour when Seacab left the harbour, passed the feeding area, turned 180 degrees and travelled back through it, then turned again and made a second pass. At times the boat was between five and 10 metres from the animals.
Because the offence targets what a skipper did and whether it was reckless, so ordinary eyewitness accounts and video footage can prove it without an expert deciding the question, the judges ruled that everyday language, not scientific terminology, governs what counts as disturbance,. Because a conviction brings a criminal record and a penalty, he said, a low threshold based on a lay impression of momentary distraction was inappropriate and too uncertain. As reported by Scottish Legal News, Greenhowe ran sea life tours from Torry Battery in Aberdeen, according to the written opinion of the Sheriff Appeal Court.
She said the guidance could help identify behaviours that might amount to disturbance but could not “trump the primary legislation”. The judges said this misunderstood the role of a skilled witness, whose task is to guide a fact-finder through a specialist area, here the behaviour of marine mammals, rather than to settle the issue. Greenhowe argued that disturbance of marine mammals is a specialist behavioural issue that a lay observer cannot judge. He relied on guidance from NatureScot, the conservation body formerly known as Scottish Natural Heritage, which describes disturbance as an interaction that changes an animal’s behaviour or environment in a way that affects its well-being or survival in the short, medium or long term. The Crown countered that an undefined word takes its ordinary English meaning, and that accidental disturbance during otherwise lawful marine activity is not criminalised, since the offence requires deliberate or reckless conduct. Sheriff Principal Gillian A Wade KC, delivering the court’s opinion, agreed. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary links the word with agitation, intrusion, worry or anxiety, interference with a settled course, frustration and interruption. The court held that the charges gave Greenhowe fair notice that driving over or too close to dolphins and whales was apt to cause exactly that. The sheriff had to weigh all the evidence, including eyewitness accounts, video footage and Greenhowe’s own explanations, and could accept or reject the expert’s view as with any other witness. The court called the idea that her opinion should displace his own assessment plainly mistaken.