Officer Two accused of 'bare faced lie' as deaths at sea inquest continues

Officer Two, the second in command aboard an RGP vessel involved in a fatal collision with a RHIB, has told the court that at no point did the senior coxswain that night navigate in a dangerous manner, and he would've stopped him if he had.

The lawyer representing the deceased accused Officer Two of lying in his account of the events leading up to the pursuit and collision.

Opening today's session, Marine Collision Expert, Captain Richard Meikle, was facing questions about the incident report he compiled in the days following the collision.

Today was the fifth day of an inquest into the deaths of Mustafa Dris Mohamed and Mohamed Abdeslam Ahmed on March 8th, 2020.

Officer One’s counsel opened his questioning by referencing points previously raised in the inquest. Jamas Hodivala KC said his client, Officer One had not intended to crash into the RHIB that night, that the location and cause of the crash were unrelated, that the navigation devices aboard not being switched on had no bearing on the collision, and that the exact cause of the collision could not be determined.

Mr Meikle agreed.

Mr Hodivala questioned how Mr Meikle could say the RGP vessel had been ‘too close to the RHIB’ before the collision if he had no police experience, or knowledge of police tactics, and showed the court a video of a separate chase at sea involving the RGP, asking Mr Meikle whether he considered the vessel in the video to have been navigating safely. Mr Meikle said he would consider some aspects of the chase safe and others as unsafe - but that it was not a like for like comparison.

When asked why he had said the proximity of the RGP vessel on the night of the collision was unsafe, he replied, “because they collided”.

Mr Hodivala said officer one was faced with an impossible situation and did the best he could to avoid the collision.  Mr Meikle disagreed.

A point of contention between Officers One and Two, and Mr Meikle has been the angle of incidence of the collision – the relative position of one boat to the other at the moment of impact.   Mr Hodivala argued that several pieces of evidence Mr Meikle used to inform his conclusion were incorrect, primarily that the two front seats on the RHIB were undamaged.

Mr Meikle said his conclusion would have been less firm, but he stood by it as his best estimate.

The Investigator’s report, based on witness testimony and his analysis, found that it was the front two occupants of the RHIB who were killed by the impact. 

Officer Two told the court this afternoon that it was the rear two passengers on the RHIB who had died.

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Representing the deceased, Mr Finch put to Officer Two that as an experienced coxswain, his account of events leading up to the chase was a bare faced lie.  He referred again to tracking data from the RHIB that showed it positioned off the breakwater by the port of La atunara, around 3 kilometres north of Gibraltar waters.  It then moved in a northerly direction, after which the RGP engaged in pursuit.

Officer Two has told the court he believed the RGP vessel had been in Gibraltar waters at all times.  He said they were positioned near the perimeter of Gibraltar waters and that Officer One told him the Guardia Civil had reported the RHIB heading towards their location at speed.  He told Mr Finch he could call the Guardia Civil officer to confirm this.  Mr Finch suggested he was only saying this because he was confident a Guardia Civil Officer wouldn’t come to testify in Gibraltar, and told Officer Two he was not telling the truth.Officer Two reminded Mr Finch that was was under oath.  Mr Finch replied that it should be he reminding the officer of this, because it was now known the entire chase took place in Spanish waters.

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Answering questions from his own counsel, Barnabas Branston, Officer Two again recounted events on the night.  He told the court there had been no need for him to check and confirm that he was still in Gibraltar at the time of the chase, because he had firmly believed he was still in BGTW and was focused on the radar.  He said it was the senior coxswain’s responsibility to switch on the boat’s chartplotter, a navigational and tracking device which hadn’t been turned on at the time.

He said once engaged in pursuit, in the dark, with reduced visibility, and the spotlights on, you lose perception of time and location, but insisted Officer One had been navigating safely at all times.  If he had seen anything reckless or dangerous in his piloting, he said he would have pulled the engine’s kill cord without question.

He said it should have been up to the pilot of the RHIB to stop, rather than engage in unpredictable and dangerous manoeuvres.

The inquest had adjourned until next Wednesday, when evidence will be heard by Officer Three who was also aboard the RGP vessel.