Boat sinking off Cornwall was accidental, High Court judge rules

A High Court judge has said he is "satisfied" that the sinking of a French trawler off the coast of Cornwall was accidental and not due to submarine involvement.

At an inquest, Judge Lickley QC concluded that the five crewmen on board the Bugaled Breizh died as a result of drowning when their trawler sank in January 2004.

It happened because of a "soft snag on the seabed", the inquest heard, which caused a loss of stability in the water off the Lizard Peninsula.

The families of two of the fishermen onboard have waited almost two decades to hear the final conclusion of the inquest into the death of their loved ones.

The bodies of Pascal Lucien de Floch, 49, and Yves Marie Gloaguen, 45, were recovered to Cornwall shortly after the tragedy.

Under English law, the inquest into their deaths must be held in the UK.

Family friend, Beatrice Kerno Plummer, said: "It was 2004 that this happened and the families have been having to deal with no closure after having lost five breadwinners from their families."

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 the Bugaled Breizh sank very quickly with no eyewitnesses or survivors, there were lengthy investigations after the sinking, which have delayed the inquests.

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

At the inquest, The Royal Navy's police force ruled out the involvement of a submarine.

They said they would have had "no hesitation" investigating possible military involvement “had the evidence pointed that way.”

But on 13 October, the Royal Navy Police Special Investigations Branch (RNPSIB) confirmed military involvement was investigated - and subsequently ruled out.