Crew worn down by fear, delays and lies.
The crew aboard the MERCHANT BRILLIANT, anchored off Heysham, have spent a
second night aboard the vessel as confusion and misinformation become the
hallmarks of a period of frustration and despair for them.
Despite dragging out negotiations yesterday the ship's owners, ADG
Shipmanagement actually sent the money out at 11 am yesterday, according
to advice given to the the ITF but, the crew were told to go to Belfast to
collect it, contradicting earlier advice that the money would be in
Heysham. Then they were told another vessel would get the money and that
it would arrive in Heysham tomorrow.
The effects of this, say the ITF is to wear down a dispirited crew who are
in dirty and degraded conditions. Already they have reduced their claim
of wages unpaid to them to approx £70,000 after some of the crew threw in
the towel, just wanting to return home. The ITF inspector aboard the
vessel with them, Ken Fleming, says these are more recently arrived
crewmen who are buckling under fear and a belief that they will never see
the money owed them anyway.
Meantime the ITF has had to issue an urgent statement aimed at the Russian
media, after worried crewmen received calls on their mobile phones from
frantic family members who say they were approached by someone claiming to
be a journalist. This person told them that the crew were shackled aboard
the ship and that their freedom would only be obtained by payment of 200
euros.
The ITF urged the Russian media to report that this was wholly untrue.
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