Inquest finds merchant seaman from Yorkshire drowned after night out in Barbados - but coroner is unable to rule out foul play
The two crewmen ate fishcakes and drank two Corona beers each before the second engineer decided to return to the ship via a local service boat at 9pm. Mr Burgess told him he wanted to remain onshore, but did not say where he was going.
He was last seen by a fisherman ‘stumbling’ alone along the jetty at 4am, and when his body was found the next day after the Lucy PG’s captain had reported him missing, he had a cut to his forehead and was wearing a wristband from a local nightclub. His wallet and money were on his person.a month after the tragedy and was pulled aside by a local woman who owned a bar that she claimed Ben had visited. She told him that ‘something happened’ to Ben and that he ‘didn’t drown’.
Postmortems conducted in Barbados and the UK concluded that Mr Burgess drowned and suffered a head injury, possibly inflicted by his body colliding with the concrete jetty. There were no other injuries or indications he had been assaulted and despite the 4cm cut, his skull was not fractured.
Mr Burgess’s family, who attended the inquest, added that they had checked his mobile phone records and found a call that night to a number which was never traced. They speculated he had been trying to call the service boat to return to his vessel, but there was no firm evidence contact had been made.Jonathan Leach recorded an open conclusion, adding: “His whereabouts that night were unknown and it is also unknown how he actually ended up in the water.
"My conclusion is open because the evidence does not disclose the means by which death arose. There are two possibilities; either that he slipped and fell, or foul play. It is unclear which applies.”
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