SHIPOWNER GAOLED.

Grey River Argus, 14 January 1928, Page 8

SHIPOWNER GAOLED.

[Story of Overladen Vessel. LOST IN HURRICANE. LONDON, November 29. Watkin James Williams, 46. shipowner, of Cardiff, was found guilty at the Cardiff Assizes yesterday on all the thirteen counts in an indictment charging him with being a party to sending the British steamships Eastway and Tideway to sea in an unseaworthy condition. Mr Justice Wright sentenced the defendant to twelve months’ imprisonment in the second division and ordered him to pay costs of the prosecution.

One count of the indictment related to the fondering of the Eastway with the loss of 23 lives in a hurricane off the Bermudas in October, 1926, and the other counts to 12 different voyages by the Tideway, still afloat, all from foreign ports. The prosecution alleged that there had been persistent overloading of the ships from foreign ports. Mr G. P. Langton, K.C., addressing the jury for the defence, said that the Eastway sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, in a perfectly seaworthy condition, in which there was no danger to the lives of the crew. She met a hurricane of unprecedented violence. She was sunk by the hurricane and nothing else. The ship weathered the gale during the day with the hurricane striking her and would have come through all right but for the unlucky port bunker hatch, which ban been stove in by the exceptionally heavy sea. The ship, he contended, could not have been overloaded. as she answered her helm with precision. The Tideway, [he suggested, was never in the slightest danger. Mr .lustice Wright, in his summingup, said that a bad hurricane undoubtedly assailed the Eastway. There was evidence that the area through which she had to go on her voyage was liable to be swept by hurricanes at that time of the year, and one of the questions for the jury was whether the ship, if overloaded to the extent alleged by the prosecution, was seaworthy—that was, reasonably fit to meet the perils which she might fairly be expected to encounter in that area. Did the prisoner use all means to see that the ship was seaworthy? He was a manager appointed under the Merchant Shipping Act, and a manager under that Act had been described as part of the machinery designed for the protection of lives and property at sea. All the defendant said was that he told his marine superintendent, Captain Mead, to tell the captains of the ships that they must not overload. Captain Mead had not been called as a witness. If the jury were satisfied that the lives of those sailors on the Eastway were endangered, and that the prisoner did not take all reasonable steps to prevent that, then it was their duty to give effect to that view, because otherwise people like-minded might be encouraged to jeopardise the lives of other men. The jury retired at 4.30 and returned to Court at 6.25 with a verdict finding the defendant guilty on all 13 counts.

Mr Justice Wright, addressing the defendant, said: “The jury have found that you have been false to the ‘trust reposed in you and false to the duty which was yours. I cannot do other than regard the offence of which you have been convicted as one which is very serious. In this country the legislature has for half a century or so taken steps to make it a primary part of its policy that ships should be made so far as they can be seaworthy, and that unscrupulous shipowners should not be allowed to overload their ships and risk the lives of those on board. “You have been found guilty of committing a crime in a number of eases—in thirteen separate cases in fact. As to the first of those, the ship Eastway was lost, and the jury may well have thought that, if she had not been overloaded as she was, she would have weathered the storm, as I have no doubt other ships in that region did. You have not been prosecuted for causing the ship to be lost, but you are convicted however, of not doing your duty oo as to see that all reasonable steps were taken for the sfaety of your ship. The sentence is that you be kept in prison in the second division for twelve months, and pay the costs of the. prosecution. ” After the defendant had been removed, Mr Justice Wright said he would order that all the cost of the prosecution should be paid by the defendant. That, lie said, included the costs of all the hearings before the Justices. Mr Trevor Hunter, who, with Mr G. P. Langton, K.C., appeared for the defendant throughout the case, made an application that Mrs Watkin Williams should be allowed to see her husband, and the Judge granted permission for her to see him to-day. The jury were exempted from jury service for seven years.