What the media have to say about Mediaworld

The article below has appeared today (August 1st) on the media site www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk. It can be viewed in full by clicking here

Fresh challenge to Prescott in shipwreck divorce wrangle
By Holdthefrontpage Staff

Journalist Graham Smith is challenging Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to "do the honourable thing" and allow Sheila Doone to marry the man who has been at her side through the emotion of an undersea survey of the sunken Gaul.
The Hull factory trawler sank 28 years ago at the height of the Cold War in the Barents Sea with the loss of all 36 crew - but the lack of a body means that Sheila cannot remarry.
She would like to marry the partner who has supported her in recent years, but has been told by her local registrar that she cannot until she divorces her first husband - even though she receives a widow's pension.
Now, after a survey of the wreck, the remains of several crew have been discovered, which may give Sheila new hope.
Graham, editor of Mediaworld, said: "In December 2000 I appealed to Mr Prescott to step in and do something about the bizarre situation in which she found herself. After going to her local registrar with her partner she was refused permission to marry.
"It is quite clear that permission was refused because in 1978 Alan Waterworth said he saw John Doone, The Gaul's radio operator, in a bar in Port Elizabeth South Africa.
"The matter was passed through various governmental hands including the Attorney General and Treasury solicitors. The effect? The refusal was even more adamant and rubber stamped from on high."
He said that someone was putting a lot of credence on the sighting - to the extent that Sheila was told she would have to "divorce" John Doone, or go through a lengthy legal process to obtain a death certificate.
She refused to divorce him on principle and could not contemplate the expense of lengthy legal proceedings.
Graham added: "On The Seisranger we are told there are remains indicating six individual bodies. Whether John Doone is one we will not know for a considerable time until DNA matching takes place.
"What we do know is that before the survey set sail families were told that if identifiable remains of six crew members were found that would be sufficient to draw the conclusion that all the crew had been on board at the time of the sinking. Using that yardstick, and a touch of humanity and common sense, why should Sheila Doone not be allowed to remarry the man who has been her tower of strength for some years now?"
In his letter to John Prescott he said: "At the moment Mr Prescott Sheila Doone does not know for certain if that happened to her.
"The survey which you sent into The Barents Sea may tell her. The criteria which you set for satisfaction that all the crew were on board appear to have been met.
"I invite you, as Deputy Prime Minister, to intervene and show humanity at a time when Sheila Doone and every Gaul family member deserves it. Tell her she can remarry. End the torment."
Graham's Mediaworld web pages beat the world with The Gaul story, publishing the news that bodies were found. One family member has already been told by legal representatives that his father has been identified.

Here is a selection of how the Press and media reported events so far. We will update with items we consider important over the coming weeks.
Graham Smith
An invitation to John Prescott, click here

Human remains found on trawler 28 years after mysterious sinking

Martin Wainwright
Guardian
Friday July 26, 2002
The first human remains to be found on the wreck of the trawler Gaul, which has been at the centre of controversy since she sank mysteriously in 1974, have been discovered by a salvage robot.
Part of a thigh bone and five other fragments have been located in different parts of the ship apparently scotching theories that her crew were taken by a Soviet scuttling party for spying.
The remains will be DNA-tested for links to the crew of 36 men who all vanished with the ship during foul weather in the Barents Sea off Norway. Naval exercises were taking place nearby at the time and the possible role of the Gaul as a Nato spyship, a task sometimes carried out by deep sea fishing vessels, has been repeatedly raised by relatives.
The finds are the most significant result to date of the government funded survey, which followed a TV company's successful tracing of the wreck two years ago. Suspicions were increased by the ease with which the barnacled remains were found, after years of government claims that a search would be impractical and too expensive.
Mike Spurgeon, 46, whose father, Morris, was first mate on the Gaul, denied yesterday that the bones debunked conspiracy theories. He said: "This doesn't explain anything. It is one bone with no clothes on it. There were 36 people on board. Where are the rest?"
The discovery was made a few days before the scheduled end of the £4m robotic survey, carried out by a Sizeranger submersible based in Aberdeen.
Max Gold, solicitor for the families of the victims, said: "Samples will be tested and compared to DNA profiles we have from 35 families of crew members. That will take two to three months."
The survey was agreed earlier this year by the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, whose Hull constituency includes the docks where the Gaul was fitted out for her final voyage. Other mysteries surrounding the sinking were the fact that the sophisticated trawler sent out no distress call and that only a small buoy was found until the discovery of the wreck.
A formal inquiry in 1974 concluded that the trawler capsized suddenly and sank in high seas - a theory supported by the discovery of a forced-open hatch on the wreck. Evidence from the current survey is likely to put before a public inquiry next year.

Human remains found in wreck of Gaul
By Shirley English The Times
HUMAN remains from more than one person have been discovered in the wreck of the trawler Gaul, which mysteriously sank in the Baltic with the loss of 36 lives in 1974.
Remote controlled underwater robots mounted with cameras made the find during a search of the wreck, which was carried out by the Aberdeen-based survey vessel Seisranger.
The remains and forensic samples were taken for DNA identification and handed over to the coroner on board. The survey ship is now returning to port and is expected to dock in Aberdeen on Sunday after searching all parts of the wreck over the past two days.
The survey, led by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, was commissioned by John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, in an attempt to establish the fate of the Hull-registered Gaul and its crew and to look for evidence of espionage activity. Rumours have persisted for years that the Gaul was involved in spying and that the former Soviet Union may have been responsible for the sinking.
A section of cable was recovered from the seabed for identification, and investigators took measurements of the propeller settings. They have also tried to establish whether the crew were fishing at the time; the state of hatches and other openings have been noted.
The search has been recorded on video to be presented, along with other evidence, at formal hearings before the Wreck Commissioner, Mr Justice David Steel, next summer.
When the trawler sank in February 1974 there was no distress message and the only wreckage recovered was a small buoy. A formal investigation was held later in 1974 which concluded that the vessel capsized and foundered in heavy seas. But the investigation found no direct evidence of how the tragedy occurred.

“Huge amount of evidence”
By Pete Harrison
LONDON (Reuters) - Undersea wreck hunters are returning from the Arctic with a dossier of fresh evidence into the sinking of a trawler believed to be a Cold War "spy ship", the government said.
Armed with a small army of submarine robots, the two million pound government- funded expedition has spent nearly a month over the wreck of The Gaul searching for clues as to why it sank off Norway's North Cape in February 1974. All 36 crew on board died.
The expedition also aimed to lay to rest some sailors' families suspicions that the ship had been pressed into spying.
"The survey was able to access nearly all parts of the wreck to look for evidence to help explain why the vessel sank and also to look for human remains and evidence of espionage activity," said a statement from the Department of Transport on Thursday.
"Relatives of those who were lost when the trawler Gaul went down have been informed that human remains were found on the wreck," it added. "Forensic samples have been recovered for identification purposes."
The Gaul, a trawler from Hull, vanished leaving only a lifebuoy and a few dozen families waiting -- so far in vain -- to bury their loved ones.
"We now have a huge amount of evidence that we hope will answer all of the questions that surround the fate of the Gaul," Shipping Minister David Jamieson said in a statement.
The video evidence will be analysed in preparation for hearings next year in a formal investigation that has now been re-opened.
Shipping experts say intelligence agents regularly press-ganged North Sea trawlers into helping them in Cold War missions.
The Gaul's resting place in the Arctic Ocean was close to Soviet Arctic ports and on a main route for Soviet nuclear submarines into the Atlantic, but the Ministry of Defence has denied in the past that the Gaul was involved in spying.
A formal investigation in 1974 concluded the Gaul capsized and foundered in heavy seas, but in 1998 Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott reopened the investigation after a government survey of the wreck revealed important new evidence.

John Prescott – will he say something to the families?
...as a Hull MP and the man who ordered the survey?

Hull Daily Mail speaks of “several bodies”
East YORKSHIRE: Families of those lost aboard Hull trawler the Gaul have been told the remains of several people have been found.
The Seisranger vessel, which led the survey of the wreck, is making its way back from the Barents Sea having collected a wealth of evidence.
With it comes the news that the relatives of the 36-strong crew have been waiting for since the Gaul sank in 1974.
Solicitor Max Gold, whose firm is representing most of the families, said: "We understand a number of human remains have been found.
"There are no full skeletons but body parts were found in different locations in the ship, so we believe they are from a number of different men."
Mr Gold said the bones would be taken for analysis to the Government's forensic science laboratories at Wetherby in an attempt to match them with the genetic profiles of any of the 36 families.
The discoveries came in the final days of the survey after the families had applied for extensions to compensate for earlier mechanical problems.
And expedition members worked until 3am yesterday - past the search's midnight deadline - to recover remains.
Now they are making the long journey back to Aberdeen.
Experts from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch will then examine the new evidence.
The families hope it will finally explain why the trawler sank.