Connor Stringer
Wed 9 October 2024
Mike Lynch and his daugher Hannah, 18, died when the Bayesian sank in bad weather off the coast of Sicily in August - Handout
The millionaire tycoon Mike Lynch’s £30 million superyacht has been pictured for the first time since it sank.
Seven people, including the British tech entrepreneur and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, died when the superyacht sank in bad weather off the coast of Sicily.
Lying at a depth of about 160ft, the Bayesian can be seen on its starboard side, where passengers were said to be found huddled in cabins by rescue drivers in August.
The footage leaked to Quarta Repubblica, an Italian investigative TV programme, was broadcast days after the inquests into the deaths of Mr Lynch and his daughter’s death were opened.
Two red rings show the portholes of the two cabins where the bodies of the seven passengers, who had gathered to celebrate 59-year-old Mr Lynch’s landmark acquittal for criminal fraud, were found by divers.
It is believed the yacht was hit by a meteorological phenomenon known as a downburst, which can be as powerful as a mini-tornado.
At Suffolk coroner’s court on Friday, an inquest opened into the deaths of Mr Lynch and Hannah, Jonathan Bloomer, 70, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International and insurance company Hiscox, and his wife, Judy, 71, a psychotherapist.
In a statement, Det Supt Mike Brown from Suffolk police said that a post mortem was carried out on Mr Lynch’s body in Italy by Prof Antonia Argo, who gave the provisional cause of death as drowning.
He said that post mortems of the other three bodies were carried out by Dr Tommaso D’Anna, with the provisional cause of death for all three victims still “under investigation”.
On what it meant for a cause of death to still be under investigation, Det Supt Brown said: “Often, there is a need for further tests to be undertaken to establish the actual cause of death.”
The other victims of the Aug 19 tragedy were Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s Antiguan-Canadian chef, Chris Morvillo, a Clifford Chance lawyer, and his wife, Neda.
Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, survived the disaster and were rescued by a nearby yacht.
The Bayesian will be raised and brought to shore as part of the investigation into how it sank within 16 minutes of being hit by the storm. It is lying about half a mile off the fishing town of Porticello.
Last month, divers recovered potentially crucial video equipment – including video surveillance systems, computers and hard drives – from the wreckage, which may help investigators find out what happened on the night of the sinking.
Mr Lynch, dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates” and who founded the British software company Autonomy, had gathered friends and family onboard the Bayesian to celebrate a legal victory.
In June, he was acquitted in a US court of multiple counts of criminal fraud over the sale of Autonomy in 2011.
The Bayesian, left, shortly before it sank in August - AFP
Following his death, the US software company Hewlett Packard Enterprise has vowed to pursue a £3 billion claim against Mr Lynch’s family.
The Bayesian’s skipper, 51-year-old New Zealander James Cutfield, is under investigation for multiple manslaughter and causing a deadly shipwreck, along with two British crew members, Tim Parker Eaton, 56, and Matthew Griffiths, 22.
Mr Parker Eaton, from Bedfordshire, was in charge of the engine room, and Mr Griffiths, who lives in the south of France with his parents, was reportedly on watch when the yacht was hit by the storm.
Under the Italian legal system, being placed under investigation does not imply guilt and does not necessarily mean that charges will be brought.
Mr Brown told the inquest last week: “In the early hours of the morning of Aug 19 between 04.15 and 04.45 hours, the yacht Bayesian, occupied by 22 people, including 12 crew members and 10 guests, flying the British flag and located approximately 0.8 nautical miles from the coast of Porticello, for reasons yet to be ascertained, sank rapidly.
“Of the total occupants of the vessel, 15 survivors were rescued while the remaining seven people were reported missing. The searches began in the following hours and continued uninterruptedly in the following days until Aug 23 after the bodies of all those missing British nationals subject to inquest were located in the cabins of the boat.”
No comments:
Post a Comment