Russian container ship captain jailed for six years over fatal North Sea collision | UK news
A Russian container ship captain has been sentenced to six years in prison after a crew member died in an explosive collision off the Yorkshire coast in the North Sea.
The Old Bailey judge told Vladimir Motin, 59, that there was a “serious accident waiting to happen” as he was jailed for manslaughter by gross negligence.
The court heard Motin stood watch alone and took no action to prevent his ship, Solong, from crashing into Stena Immaculate, a stationary oil tanker.
It caused an explosion and in the resulting fire, 38-year-old Filipino citizen Mark Angelo Pernia died instantly. His body was never found.
Pernia had a five-year-old child at the time of the crash, but she never met her second child, who was born two months after her death.
On Thursday, Mr Justice Andrew Baker said Motin had failed to exercise proper surveillance, which amounted to a “total failure of duty” over an extended period of time.
During the trial, Motin claimed that he pressed the wrong button when he turned off the autopilot and tried to move away from the tanker moments before the crash. He denied sleeping or giving up his seat on the bridge.
The judge said Motin’s account was “highly problematic”, “improbable”, “highly implausible” and “even worse” than the prosecution’s version of events.
The basic facts of the collision “suggest that one ship was unaware of the ship ahead” and that this was the “most likely” explanation, he said.
The prosecution argued that Motin failed to keep a proper watch for an extended period of time and then failed to sound the alarm, call for help or warn the crew of the impending disaster.
Jailing Motin, from St Petersburg, the judge told him: “You were a serious accident waiting to happen.”
The judge said the experienced sailor had “blatantly disregarded the very high risk of death” and was the victim of his own indifference and arrogance.
Motin was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence by a jury on Monday.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Pernia’s widow Leacel said there was no compensation to compensate for the pain of her loss and the impact it had on her young family.
James Leonard KC, in mitigation, conveyed the defendant’s shame at what had happened, expressed his condolences to Pernia’s family and vowed never to go to sea again. Leonard highlighted Motin’s previous “not guilty” record and said: “This was truly an aberration in his behavior.”
The judge said Pernia’s death was “entirely preventable” and the blame fell squarely on the defendant. He added that Solong and other members of the Stena Immaculate crew could have died and the accident could have caused major damage to the cargo.
The court previously heard that the Solong, 130 meters long and weighing 7,852 gross tonnes, set off from Grangemouth, Scotland, towards Rotterdam, Netherlands, at 9.05pm on March 9, 2025.
With its crew of 14 people, it was carrying mainly alcoholic beverages and some dangerous goods, including empty but dirty sodium cyanide containers.
Stena Immaculate, with a crew of 23, was 183 meters long and transported more than 220,000 barrels of JetA1 high-quality aviation fuel from Greece to the UK.
The danger in the event of a collision was obvious, jurors were told, as both ships were loaded with flammable cargo.
CCTV footage captured the moment both ships burned in a fire caused by fuel leaking from the Stena Immaculate.
The shocked crew on the US tanker reacted immediately, saying: “Damn… what just hit us… a container ship… this is not a drill, this is not a drill, fire, fire, fire, we’ve had a crash.”
Jurors heard a long silence before the Solong bridge crashed into the oil tanker at 15.2 knots. A full minute passed before Motin’s reaction was heard.
