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The Russian captain of a ship that crashed into an oil tanker off the Yorkshire coast has been found guilty of killing a crew member in the collision.
Vladimir Motin, a 59-year-old from St Petersburg, was on sole watch when his ship, the Solong, collided into the Stena Immaculate oil tanker near the Humber estuary on 10 March last year. Mark Angelo Pernia, a 38-year-old Filipino man, was killed in the wreck.
A jury at the Old Bailey deliberated for eight hours before returning a guilty verdict for manslaughter by gross negligence against Motin, who appeared emotionless as he heard it before being remanded into custody ahead of being sentenced on Thursday.
Prosecuting, Tom Little KC described the trial as being about “the entirely avoidable death of a seaman” and claimed that “ultimately, he would still be alive if it was not for the grossly negligent behaviour of the defendant”.
The court was informed by Little that Pernia, who had a five-year-old child at the time of his death, had been expecting a second child with his wife, who was about seven months pregnant when her husband was killed.
Little also said that Pernia’s wife, who lives in a remote area of the Philippines, would travel to somewhere with good internet access to watch the sentencing proceedings virtually.
During his defence, Motin claimed that he had spotted the ship and realised the danger, but that his attempts to take manual control of his own vessel failed and the crash was unavoidable.
Representing Motin, James Leonard KC said that there was no doubt that the captain was at fault for the crash but denied that his actions amounted to gross negligence, instead describing his lack of action as a “human error”, a “bad mistake” and an “error of judgment”.
DCS Craig Nicholson of Humberside police described the crash as a “simple, senseless tragedy”, and said he believed that it was “a miracle that there weren’t more fatalities or serious injuries”.
He added: “Similarly, this could have been a huge environmental catastrophe. The Solong burned for eight days after the collision.
“There were people on the deck of the Stena Immaculate at the point of impact. One crew member was up a mast changing a light fitting.”
The Solong, Motin’s ship, was described in court as 130 metres long and weighing 7,852 gross tonnes. It had been carrying mainly alcoholic spirits and some hazardous substances, including empty but unclean sodium cyanide containers, while the Stena Immaculate, which was 183.2 metres long, was carrying more than 220,000 barrels of JetA1 high-grade aviation fuel. The jury heard that the dangers of a crash were high and obvious.
Motin was alleged to have failed to slow down his ship, as well as not summoning or alerting crew, despite the Solong being visible on the ship’s radar for at least 36 minutes. He is also alleged to have lied about the events on the bridge after the crash.
