If I borrowed a high performance car from a mate, had a few drinks with a girl who was as drunk as me, then let her drive me around the streets in it so that she drove it off the road and over a harbour wall, and she died.
I think I would accept responsibility for my part in her death, face any inquiry into my role in an act of apparant lethal negligence, and accept the consequences.
Pleading “it was an accident for which no-one is to blame” is a scandalous piece of mischief, and no one IMO should give it any credence whatsoever. I doubt the court, or a jury, will.strong text
As it has been pointed out Jack Shepherd has already been found guilty and will now have to stand trial on a number of other charges, some of them as serious as the original one.
Perhaps it would be a good time for the UK to consider tightening up its very lax use of pleasure craft laws. A boat like that involved can be used in Britain quite legally without being registered or insured, the owner/driver needs to hold no licence and the use of life jackets is voluntary. Most European (not EU) countries quite rightly have far more control over their use.
As l said earlier - Why do you waste time with this ‘Agent Provocateur’ - it seems to me that every narrative he expounds is designed to piss people off - or am l too sensitive???
Given Brians feelings about women swearing, references to birds and the dig about meeting online I suspect that the 60s will soon come round looking for their values back
Well, it would seem that Brian has an unfortunate track record here, which thankfully, I seem to have missed, but if we just focus on the issue at hand. The girl in question was 24, an adult, she drove the boat and she crashed the boat. Her Dad and sister seem in denial about her role in the tragedy. If Shepherd had died and she survived, she’d be the defendant. As a skipper I know what my responsibilities are and he obviously didn’t or didn’t care and so should pay the price. The message that should be taken from this IMO is that boats are unregulated in Britain and that can cause tragedies. On the other hand restricting boat ownership/use in an island nation used to messing about in boats could be as contentious as restricting gun ownership is to the NRA. What do you do?
Will someone shut this idiot up . He’s simply a contrarian who has the grasp of neither the law nor of logic. I thought this species of troll had died out with the demise of the Knuckle Grazers Gazette.
I cannot believe there’s any real discussion about who is to blame for the death of Miss Brown, if Jack Shepherd had not been try to impress his new date by racing down the Thames in a poorly maintained speedboat then she would still be alive today.
If you drive a car it is impressed upon you that you are in charge of a dangerous machine, the same should be applied to shipping.
The small fast boats and the other boats whose skippers take chances or just do not really know what they are doing and then endanger the lives of others when they have to be rescued.
It should be mandatory to have some form of certification.
When Jim was working away he went to night school to get his Day Skipper certificate.
