08/02/2007

P&O man charged over sailors' deaths

A P&O employee has been charged with the manslaughter of three sailors found dead in the English Channel last year.

Michael Hubble, from Folkestone in Kent, was working on the Pride of Bilbao ferry at the time that the yacht Ouzo disappeared last August.

The yacht had left Bembridge on August 20 in order to sail to Devon for the Dartmouth Regatta.

The bodies of the three men on board the yacht - Jason Downer, 35, from Kent, James Meaby and Rupert Saunders, both 36 and both from London - were discovered in the sea a few days later. The yacht has never been found.

Mr Hubble has been charged with three counts of manslaughter due to gross negligence.

(KMcA)


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