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The 2004 sinking of a French fishing boat in UK waters, with the deaths of five people, was an accident, a British coroner has ruled, rejecting claims it was dragged down by a submarine.
The Bugaled Breizh sank off Cornwall, southwest England, in good weather nearly 18 years ago.
Lawyers for the French victims' families argued that a submarine on exercises could have become tangled with the boat's nets and pulled it down.
But, after an inquest with weeks of evidence at London's High Court, Judge Nigel Lickley ruled: "The Bugaled Breizh sank ... as a result of a fishing accident.
"The probable cause was that the vessel's fishing trawl gear became buried and snagged in the seabed, which, in the relevant area, comprised of a layer of sediment and mud.
"It is likely that this soft snag led to the progressive loss of stability of the vessel, which ultimately caused the Bugaled Breizh to sink.
"There was no other vessel involved in the sinking, whether submarine or surface vessel."
Outside the court, Thierry Lemetayer, whose father Georges drowned in the tragedy, said the judge based his findings "solely on a single report drawn up by 10 French military personnel two years after the sinking."
"There are plenty of independent experts ... who have produced reports that went in the opposite direction, that it wasn't a soft snag.
"There's not a single example in the world of a soft snag that led to a sinking," he added, accusing the military of backing each other up.
The UK's Ministry of Defence had insisted none of its submarines was active in the exact area. The inquest heard that three subs from the Netherlands, Germany and Britain were operating in the general area close to the site of the tragedy.
The families' suspicions were focused on another submarine, a British Royal Navy nuclear-powered vessel HMS Turbulent.
But the British navy ruled out any involvement, saying the Turbulent was docked on the day of the sinking, January 15.
MoD lawyer Edward Pleeth denied any allied sub could have been the cause of the tragedy and said it was an accident, telling the judge: "Every proposition of alternative explanations was rejected in totality by your independent counsel."
The French justice system, after years of investigations, said in 2016 it was unable to reach a definitive conclusion.
（AFP）
