It isn’t quite Whisky Galore ! – the classic British film in which residents of a Scottish island attempt to pilfer 50,000 cases of spirit from a shipwreck.

Rather than the prospect of finding a warming dram or two, people on the south coast of England have been coming across bunches of bananas after containers fell off the back of a ship and washed up on beaches in West Sussex .

Initially, HM Coastguard issued stern warning that the finds ought to be reported to the receiver of wreck , the UK government civil servant whose role can be traced back to a time when pirates, smugglers and looters tried to hide plunder from the law.

However, the receiver’s office made it clear on Monday that because the “plunder” in this case was perishable, it did not need to be flagged to it.

That d

See Full Page