Article from The Daily Telegraph

Trawler disaster 'widow' in fight for the right to remarry
By Hamida Ghafour
(Filed: 05/08/2002)

A woman whose husband is believed to have died in
Britain's worst fishing disaster in living memory has been refused permission to remarry because she has been told she cannot prove her husband is dead.
Sheila Doone's husband, John, was among the 36 crew members who disappeared when the Gaul sank in the Barents Sea during a storm in 1974.
After years of grieving the loss of her husband, whose body has never been found, Mrs Doone, 60, said she wished to share her remaining years with Ernest Green.
However, when they applied for a marriage licence at the register office in Burnley, Lancs, they were turned down because of an uncorroborated sighting of Mr Doone by a former colleague, who believed he saw him at a bar in South Africa four years after the trawler went down.
Mrs Doone was told she needed to obtain a death certificate or divorce Mr Doone before she could receive the licence.
"I am 60 now and this is my last chance at happiness," said Mrs Doone, of Brierfield, Lancs. "I have grieved for John for nearly 30 years, that is a long time. Why won't they let me marry Ernest, at least on grounds of compassion and humanity?"
Peter Loftus, the superintendent registrar for Burnley and Pendle said he had not received satisfactory evidence to allow the application to be approved. But conclusive evidence may be provided by the latest government investigation into the Gaul.
Last month, a survey examining the wreck which lies at the bottom of the Barents Sea found several bones. DNA testing is being carried out to identify the remains and one of them may be that of Mr Doone, 34, the ship's radio operator.
For years it was rumoured that the fishing trawler was a spy ship seized by the Soviet Union and Mr Doone had been trained in eavesdropping at GCHQ in Cheltenham before the ship set sail.
Mrs Doone said: "He was gone for 10 days before the Gaul left Hull and did not tell me where he was going. It was not like John not to call or write to his children."
Despite a survey following the sinking, and a formal investigation which concluded that the ship foundered and capsized in a violent storm, many of the crew members' families believed they were killed by Russians or imprisoned in a gulag.
One of Mr Doone's former colleagues, Alan Waterworth, said he saw him at a waterfront bar in Port Elizabeth in 1978. Mrs Doone later found out that on the same day of the sighting, a Greek- registered ship docked in Port Elizabeth had a John Doone working on it as a radio operator.
"Whether it was John, I don't know," she said. "I don't think I'll ever know the truth."
In any case, Mrs Doone, who raised his three children - Angela, Catherine and Martin - by herself, believes that she should not be prevented from trying to start a new life with Mr Green, a 69-year- old retired builder.
To marry again, Mrs Doone would have to obtain a death certificate, a lengthy and expensive process, or divorce Mr Doone, which she refuses to do "on principle".
"I don't believe in divorce," she said. "I'm a widow. I received widow's pension once a week after John died but I stopped it last year when Ernest moved in. Is that not proof enough?"
Mr Green said he hoped the Government would intervene. "This has gone on long enough," he said. "We just want to live in peace but no one will help us."
A spokesman for John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister and member for Hull East, said though the Gaul had sailed from his constituency he could not intervene because Mrs Doone is a constituent of Gordon Prentice. Mr Prentice was unavailable for comment.

Today (Monday August 5th) has been a most amazing day. I have seen more media interest in the story of Sheila Doone and The Gaul than I have seen in 28 years. It pleases me. It is long overdue, and I will do my best as a journalist to  see that all the interest is directed towards what, I know, is the main objective of all of you, the truth.
To reach that truth it is paramount that everything in the media is factual and correct. To that end I have had to write something about a piece of dangerous misinformation which has been put forward by the families' solicitor Max Gold. It was in the piece above and in a broadcast which he did today on Radio Five Live.
Read it by clicking here