Skipper ‘was on app when wave swamped boat’
A SCOTS skipper was on WhatsApp when his trawler swamped four friends on a fishing trip, killing three of them, a court heard.
The men drowned after David Brooks Marr failed to hear their cries or see their small pleasure boat and lights as he steamed straight at them.
Marr, 55, from Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, was looking at WhatsApp messages on his mobile phone when he should have been keeping a lookout, a jury was told.
He was at the helm and unaware of the shouts from the group of friends who were on a fishing trip off the Sussex coast when his scallop dredger Vertrouwen steamed straight at them at between seven and 7.5 knots. Three Romanian anglers drowned and one survived by clinging to a buoy and was rescued hours later.
In the dock, Marr heard that waves from his trawler, owned by fishing giant MacDuff, swamped their boat approximately 1.5 miles (2.4km) off Shoreham in the early hours of August 6, 2017.
All four men on board the 16.5ft long fibreglass craft, James 2, were forced to jump overboard, a jury in Brighton heard. The boat was designed to be used on inland waterways only and did not have adequate lights or a radar reflector, the court heard.
Mircea ‘Mitch’ Ilie, 43, his brother-in-law Irinel Popovici, 41, and Traian Dumitrache, 51, drowned after the boat sank.
The only survivor, Elvis Cojocariu, then aged 45, told police Mr Ilie had put the boat in a full throttle, 180 degree turn as the Vertrouwen bore down on them but it was too late.
David Richards, for the prosecution, told the jury: ‘All that could be seen were two bright forward-facing lights. When [the boat] was 200-300m away, [Mr Cojocariu] started waving his head torch at [the boat] and telling Mr Ilie to move out of the way. It hadn’t changed course or speed.’
Marr denies failing to maintain a proper lookout in contravention of international regulations for preventing collisions at sea.
The trial at Lewes Crown Court in Brighton continues.