Skipper jailed for a year after three men drowned in boat accident

‘Instead of checking to ensure he knew what was there, it appears he was doing other things,’ say prosecutors

The Vertrouwen swamped the smaller boat as it passed close by (Sussex Police )

A boat skipper has been jailed after three men drowned when the boat he was sailing swamped a smaller vessel.

David Marr, was in charge of the Vertrouwen vessel when it passed extremely close to the fishing boat, which was inundated by waves and sank off Shoreham, West Sussex, in 2017.

Prosecutors said he had not been paying sufficient attention or he would have seen the men on the other boat “frantically signalling to him”.

Four Romanians were on board the James 2 when disaster struck. Three died but the fourth, Elvis Cojocariu, was found the next morning suffering from hypothermia.

He told the trial that he and his colleagues saw the Vertrouwen from about 1km away and had been signalling “like mad” to it.

But the Vertrouwen carried on approaching without slowing, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said. Mercea (Mitch) Ilea, Irinel Popovici and Treaiam Dumitrache drowned.

Marr, 55, of Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, was found guilty in the trial at Brighton Crown Court of failing to maintain a proper lookout, and was jailed for 12 months.

Libby Clark, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Instead of constantly checking to ensure he knew what was out there, it appears he was doing other things and, even after his actions caused the James 2 to sink, he continued to sail on, oblivious to the fact that a boat was sinking and that three men would lose their lives as a result of his not keeping a proper lookout.

“It was not unusual for small fishing boats, like the James 2, to be in this area and the defendant should have been alert to that, and David Marr should have been using every means available to him, as required by maritime regulations, to establish what, if anything, might be in the sea ahead.”

During the trial, Marr insisted he had been keeping a proper lookout, saying had he known of the incident, he would have “taken immediate steps to assist in any way I could”.

Additional reporting by PA