L’Ecume trial hears how Condor commercial pressures led to meal-break practice ‘creeping in’

The jury in the manslaughter trial of two Condor employees whose vessel collided with a fishing trawler has heard that “commercial pressures” sometimes led to a practice for crew members to take meal breaks while sailing, rather than after docking.

Giving evidence, Lewis Carr – who was the officer in charge on the bridge of the Commodore Goodwill at the time of the collision with L’Ecume II – said he had sent his colleague and co-accused Artur Sevash-Zade to have his breakfast in the minutes before the two vessels collided.

The collision caused the deaths of L’Ecume II’s three crew members – captain Michael Michieli, Larry Simyunn and Jervis Baligat. Mr Carr (30) and Mr Sevash-Zade (35) each deny three charges of manslaughter.

Mr Carr said that in cases when a ship was running late, as on the day of the collision in December 2022, the watchman would be asked to help work on the vehicle deck in order to speed up the disembarkation process, and therefore would take their meal-break earlier in order to be available at this stage.

“There was commercial pressure from the shore to encourage us to let the watchman have breakfast so that he could help [on the deck},” Mr Carr said.

Asked whether this was company policy, Mr Carr added: “It wasn’t policy, it was a practice that crept in when the ship was late.”

The court heard that Mr Sevash-Zade had initially declined a suggestion that he went for breakfast, but then agreed and left the bridge at around 5.05am on the day in question, returning at around 5.22am, around 12 minutes before the collision took place.

Advocate Simon Thomas, defending Mr Carr, asked his client why he thought the collision had occurred.

Mr Carr gave three reasons: that L’Ecume was not displaying fishing lights; that the fishing trawler had no effective lookout who understood the international regulations designed to prevent collisions, known as COLREG; and the action taken by L’Ecume in altering the trawler’s course in a port direction during the final minutes, which he said was in breach of three rules within COLREG.

Mr Carr said he gave a police interview the day after the collision which, he explained, took place after a sleepless night in which he had been awake thinking about the “traumatic event” of the previous day.

As a result of his mental state, and not having access to data from the radar, Mr Carr said that some of the answers he gave in the police interview may not have been accurate.

The jury trial – now in its third week – is scheduled to last four weeks.

Commissioner Sir John Saunders is presiding.