Brit lookout and engineer on doomed Bayesian superyacht placed under manslaughter probe along with ‘silent’ Captain

TWO Brits are being investigated over the sinking of doomed superyacht Bayesian which killed seven people.

Ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton, from Clophill, Beds, and sailor Matthew Griffith, 22, are being probed by Italian prosecutors for culpable shipwreck and multiple manslaughter.

Facebook

It comes after the luxury yacht owned by tech tycoon Mike Lynch capsized off the coast of Sicily last week, a judicial source told Reuters.

Griffith is understood to have been on watch duty the night of the tragedy, while Parker Eaton is suspected of having failed to protect the £14 million vessel’s engine room and operating systems when it was hit by a storm in the early hours of August 19.

Reports suggest crew bedrooms have been searched, with at least two phones seized.

It comes after the boat’s captain James Cutfield, 51, was placed under investigation for the same offences on Monday.

The New Zealander was quizzed the following day but refused to answer questions as he was too “shaken up” .

Speaking to The Times on Tuesday, Cutfield’s lawyer Aldo Mordiglia said his client “exercised his right to remain silent”.

He added: “There were two reasons. He is understandably very shaken up, and secondly, us lawyers were only appointed yesterday and we need to acquire information we do not have in order to defend him.”

Prosecutors are also preparing to investigate Dutch first officer Tijs Koopmans, according to Italian media.

Under Italian maritime laws, the full responsibility for the welfare of a ship, its crew, and passengers lies with the captain of a vessel.

Being under investigation in Italy does not imply guilt and does not necessarily mean formal criminal charges will follow.

The 184 ft Bayesian was carrying 22 people when it sank within minutes of being hit by a downburst – a strong, localised wind – while anchored in Porticello near Palermo around 4am last Monday.

Fifteen of those on board were rescued on a life raft, while the yacht’s cook Recaldo Thomas was discovered dead in the water shortly afterwards.

Specialist divers recovered the bodies of billionaire Lynch, 59, and four of his guests, from the first cabin on the left.

They were identified as Morgan Stanley International chief Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, and Clifford Chance lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah was discovered in the third cabin.

Officials said the victims had scrambled to reach air pockets in the yacht, which sank 164ft stern-first before rolling onto its right side on the seabed.

Investigators are understood to be rifling through CCTV footage and photographs taken by locals on the night of the storm to understand why the boat sank so quickly.

At a press conference at the Termini Imerese Courthouse on Saturday, Chief Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said there may have been “behaviours that were not perfectly in order with regard to the responsibility everybody had.”

His team will probe if hatches were left open, allowing water to flood in.

hey will also look into whether the crew raised the alarm before escaping.

He vowed to “discover how much they knew and to what extent all the people (passengers) were warned.”

Mr Cartosio added: “There could be in fact the question of homicide. But this is the beginning of the inquiry, we cannot exclude anything at all…We will establish each element’s (crew) responsibility.

“For me, it is probable that offences were committed — that it could be a case of manslaughter.”

It comes as former Bayesian captain Stephen Edwards, who was in charge of the vessel between 2015 and 2020, says he is “one hundred per cent” sure the hull would not have been left open at night – adding that there are no opening windows or portholes on board.

Writing on Scuttlebutt, he said the boat was “sound and seaworthy by design” but that heeling her to more than 45 degrees “could result in flooding and subsequent loss if the flooding could not be controlled”.

He suggested the weather conditions could have created these “extreme circumstances” with little warning or time for the crew to react.

The surviving passengers, including Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, 57, left Sicily in a private jet on Sunday, with most of the crew also set to leave after being grilled by investigators.

Inside The Bayesian's final 16 minutes

By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter

Data recovered from the Bayesian’s Automatic Identification System (AIS) breaks down exactly how it sank in a painful minute-by-minute timeline.

At 3.50am on Monday August 19 the Bayesian began to shake “dangerously” during a fierce storm, Italian outlet Corriere revealed.

Just minutes later at 3.59am the boat’s anchor gave way, with a source saying the data showed there was “no anchor left to hold”.

After the ferocious weather ripped away the boat’s mooring it was dragged some 358 metres through the water.

By 4am it had began to take on water and was plunged into a blackout, indicating that the waves had reached its generator or even engine room.

At 4.05am the Bayesian fully disappeared underneath the waves.

An emergency GPS signal was finally emitted at 4.06am to the coastguard station in Bari, a city nearby, alerting them that the vessel had sunk.

Early reports suggested the disaster struck around 5am local time off the coast of Porticello Harbour in Palermo, Sicily.

The new data pulled from the boat’s AIS appears to suggest it happened an hour earlier at around 4am.

Some 15 of the 22 onboard were rescued, 11 of them scrambling onto an inflatable life raft that sprung up on the deck.

A smaller nearby boat – named Sir Robert Baden Powell – then helped take those people to shore.

Chief Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said the victims would have been asleep when a tornado-like waterspout struck the boat, leaving them unable to escape.

Witnesses and officials have said the swirling cloud of air and water hit the boat’s mast, toppling it and causing it to capsize.

In a press conference on Saturday, Mr Cartosio said there may have been “behaviours that were not perfectly in order with regard to the responsibility everybody had”.

He added: “There could be in fact the question of homicide. But this is the beginning of the inquiry, we cannot exclude anything at all.”

He said one line of inquiry was whether the crew attempted to raise the alarm with passengers before getting on the lifeboat and escaping.

Mr Cartosio vowed to “discover how much they (the crew) knew and to what extent all the people (passengers) were warned.”

He said: “We will establish each element’s (crew) responsibility. For me, it is probable that offences were committed — that it could be a case of manslaughter.”

Lead prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano said Italy’s Air Force found the boat was sunk by a downburst that descended from a thunderstorm.

He said there were forecasts of strong winds and a storm alert but good visibility and no suggestion of a tornado.

He added: “Given the conditions were such, there wasn’t anything to suggest there could be an extreme situation.

“There are vessels that can monitor these events and one would have thought the captain had taken precautions.”

He said one person was on watch in the cockpit at the time of the accident.

Authorities now face a delicate task in extracting the wreck from the sea intact so that it can be properly investigated.