Overview
- CCTV shows marine biologist Emma Smart entering Catch at the Old Fish Market and, on April 10, 2025, grabbing a live crustacean from a tank before releasing it into Weymouth harbour.
- Smart pleaded guilty to criminal damage and received an eight-month conditional discharge plus a three-year order that keeps her 10 metres from the restaurant.
- The Crown Prosecution Service did not proceed with charges of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal or assault, which had been considered earlier in the case.
- Owner Sean Cooper says the animal was a warm-water crayfish kept for two and a half years to teach children and says it likely died from thermal shock and the force of the throw.
- Smart’s lawyers said she acted on impulse out of concern for animals, and court records note prior activism, including a 2022 run-in at the same venue and a 2021 Insulate Britain conviction.