More than two years after being charged with manslaughter following a collision at sea in which two people died, boat captain Sean Michael McDonald, 38, appeared in court on Tuesday as his two-week trial began.
Former RCIPS police officer Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Brown, 49, and John Turner, 70, a British resident in Cayman, were killed, and a female passenger was badly injured when their boat, a Godfrey Hurricane, and the vessel McDonald was piloting, a 32-foot Scarab called the Pepper Jelly, collided near Harbour House Marina in Prospect on Sunday night, 11 Aug. 2019.
In relation to the injured woman, McDonald is also charged with endangering human life or safety through reckless and negligent acts.
The first person to give testimony in the judge-alone trial before Justice Cheryll Richards, was the prosecution’s marine accident expert from the US, Patrick Michael Neal, who told the court Tuesday that GPS tracking indicated that the Pepper Jelly had been travelling at 50 miles an hour when it collided with the Hurricane at 7:44pm.
In his report, Neal said this level of speed, at night, while approaching shore where background lights could make it difficult to see another boat’s lights, was “reckless” and posed a danger to those on the boat and to other vessels in the North Sound at the time.
During his evidence, Neal used two model boats to demonstrate how the Pepper Jelly likely struck the front of the smaller boat, mounted it and hit the helm, effectively rolling over the Hurricane, and then yawing and changing direction, before capsizing. The Hurricane, after being struck, continued to move through the water before hitting the seawall, the court heard.
Brown was thrown from the boat, and his body was recovered the next day.
Neal said, according to his findings, the Hurricane in which Brown, Turner and the injured woman were travelling, was not at full throttle, but was most likely at one-third to one-half throttle when the collision occurred. At half throttle, it would have been travelling at 20 miles per hour, and at a third, its speed would have been about 7.5 mph.
Neal also stated that his examination of the wreckage of the Hurricane indicated that its navigational lights were working at the time of the collision.
Crown prosecutor Richard Matthews, QC, showed the court a number of videos during Tuesday’s hearing, including a CCTV video from Harbour House Marina, taken at 7:44pm, which appears to show the moment of impact between the boats.
He also showed on screen the journey the Pepper Jelly had taken from Camana Bay to the Harbour House Channel, which was recorded on the boat’s GPS tracker that had been recovered from the sea following the crash.
McDonald is accused of causing the deaths of Brown and Turner “by culpable negligence in the discharge of the duty to pilot the marine vessel Pepper Jelly with reasonable care to avoid endangering the life of other persons, in particular by navigating Pepper Jelly at dangerous and excessive speed when approaching the shore and the entrance to a channel during the hours after sunset”.
In the third charge, of endangering human life or safety through reckless and negligent acts, he is accused of navigating the Pepper Jelly “in a manner so rash or negligent as to endanger human life… at dangerous and excessive speed when approaching the shore and the entrance to a channel during the hours after sunset”.
Neal will be cross-examined by Ben Tonner, acting for McDonald who remains on bail, when the trial resumes on Thursday.
McDonald denies the charges.
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Madness to travel at this sort of speed in the North Sound.
I hope justice is served in this case, two deaths and a third badly injured, surely makes this the worst small boat collision in Cayman history.