THE skipper whom fisherman Paul Stone says is responsible for an accident that cost him his hand yesterday denied that he had not been paying attention. Mark Hickman, 45, refused to accept that he had not done his job properly while laying crab pots on 17 May 2000.
In giving evidence at a civil hearing, which will decide liability, he said he had a very clear view of the deck and did not see a crab pot fall from the shooting table, as Mr Stone said in his evidence.
Mr Hickman said he saw him pick up a pot that had been rolled to him and then put it on the table.
He then saw Mr Stone leaning over it and immediately put the boat into reverse believing there was something wrong, added Mr Hickman, who has been a fisherman for 35 years and had been the owner of the Janette Elaine for 10 years before the accident.
‘Paul turned around and I thought he had lost fingers,’ he said.
‘I saw the blood. He pulled up his sleeve and I saw that he lost his hand.’
Mr Hickman also told the hearing that he could not remember if he had had a conversation with Mr Stone’s father David at the hospital after the accident.
Mr Stone’s father previously said that Mr Hickman told him he had had no idea anything had happened until Paul knocked on the wheelhouse window and that he had good insurance and they should sue.
‘He did not bang on the wheelhouse to get my attention,’ said Mr Hickman.
Expert safety witnesses for the plaintiff and defendant also gave evidence.
Captain Peter Knott, who has nearly 30 years’ fishing experience, said: ‘Overall, the skipper of the boat has to bear some responsibility because the information available to me is that there was no reaction till after the accident.
‘But the crewman has to bear some responsibility because he was handling the ropes.’
He said the safety of the Janette Elaine had improved since the accident with the introduction of a shooting ramp rather than a table, but that a risk assessment should have been undertaken beforehand. But Advocate Mark Ferbrache said the alteration was not as a result of the incident.
Capt. Knott said crewmen were taught not to pick up fallen pots, but instinct often took over. He said it would be the job of the skipper to ensure that did not happen. From the pictures he had seen of the boat and its layout, he said there was no reason to believe that Mr Hickman would not have had a 99% clear view of the shooting operation that day.
Capt. Knott questioned the use of a metal screen behind the table that did not allow a skipper to see from the wheelhouse what was happening with a pot. From his experience, screens usually had holes in them or were made using parallel bars.
But Captain Barry Goldsmith, a marine surveyor with more than 30 years at sea, said that that was one area in which the two experts’ views differed.
He said that having been on the vessel, unlike Capt. Knott, he was satisfied that there was no blind spot.
The hearing continues on Tuesday.
Article posted on 1st June, 2007 - 12.00am
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