'No evidence' British submarine sank boat off Cornwall, inquest hears

A British submarine's involvement in the sinking of a French trawler off Cornwall has been ruled out by naval police at an inquest.

The Royal Navy’s police force said they would have had “no hesitation” investigating military involvement in the sinking “had the evidence pointed that way.”

All five French crewmen on board the Bugaled Breizh died when the trawler sank suddenly off the Lizard Peninsula in January 2004.

The question of whether a British Navy submarine may have become entangled in the boat’s nets and caused it to capsize has been raised repeatedly since the incident.

At an inquest at London’s High Court on October 13, the Royal Navy Police Special Investigations Branch (RNPSIB) confirmed military involvement was investigated - and subsequently ruled out.

Andrew Billings, who is a former commander and led the investigation into the sinking, said he had found no evidence any submarine was within five nautical miles of the trawler.

He told the inquest he had been confined to investigating British involvement - but would have escalated concerns about foreign vessels if he had any.

"We didn't, in my opinion, have the jurisdiction to investigate foreign nationalities i.e. the Dutch submarine nearby and there was a German boat as well," he said.

"I found nothing that would have made me alarmed at what I'd found and no evidence pointing towards any foreign involvement.”

When asked by Judge Nigel Lickley QC what he would have done if there had been some military involvement, he said: "We would have investigated it. You know it's not unheard of - we've investigated many incidents involving submarines."

Mr Billings cited the deaths of two sailors aboard HMS Tireless in 2007.

"We investigated that over a number of years to draw a successful conclusion for the families," he said.

"We would have had no hesitation but to do the same thing in this instance had the evidence pointed that way."

The inquest is only considering the deaths of skipper Yves Marie Gloaguen, 45, and Pascal Lucien Le Floch, 49.

Their bodies were recovered in the hours after the ship sank and taken to the Royal Cornwall Hospital.

It means that under English law an inquest must be held here.

The body of a third man, Patrick Gloaguen, 35, was recovered during a salvage but was taken to France, while the bodies of Georges Lemetayer, 60, and Eric Guillamet, 42, were never found.

As a result, their deaths are not the subject of the inquest, although their families are taking part in the process.

The inquest also heard the Royal Navy is "very confident" there were no non-allied submarines within 50 nautical miles of the Bugaled Breizh when it sank.

A Dutch submarine, the Dolfijn, is believed to have been the closest submarine, and was 12 nautical miles south of the Bugaled Breizh when it sank.

The inquest, which is scheduled to run until October 22, continues.