A CREW member who was accused of threatening the skipper of a fishing vessel and causing damage to equipment has been ordered to pay €3,000 compensation.
Mohamed Elabahout of 2 Warner’s Lane, Skibbereen, was represented by solicitor Flor Murphy at Skibbereen District Court.
The accused’s defence before Judge Mark O’Connell was that he was so violently ill, it was the only way he could emphasise his need to return to shore.
In evidence against the accused, John Cahalane, skipper of the Emerald Isle, said he was threatened on the morning of February 7th last and criminal damage was caused to a VHF radio, to a CCTV camera, and to weighing scales.
The skipper said he and a crew of seven, who were fishing in Irish waters off the Porcupine Bank, were just four days out when the accused complained of feeling sick.
‘We all had the flu at the same time and I told him to rest up because we were not very busy, and I told him to take medication,’ he stated in evidence.
‘He was complaining a lot and wanted to go ashore,’ said the skipper who was of the opinion that it was ‘a bad flu’.
The skipper also explained that they had lost some of their fishing gear after it got caught on the bottom.
He said they were working to retrieve the gear when he heard a lot of shouting and then the accused approached him in the wheelhouse with a lump hammer and a knife.
‘He said he wanted to go ashore, but I said we had to try and retrieve the fishing gear. Then he smashed the camera on the stern.’
The skipper said he also grabbed the radio and tried to send out a mayday call but damaged the radio in the process. ‘The radio is for emergencies only so I pulled the radio off him and scratched his finger as I was doing that.’
John Cahalane said their intention was to stay out for two weeks but they returned to shore after the incident in the wheelhouse.
Mr Murphy put it to the witness that his client was so sick that he couldn’t stay on board and begged to be brought ashore, but the skipper said he’d asked the fisherman to rest up for 24 hours.
Mr Murphy submitted that the skipper wasn’t medically qualified to assess his client’s condition and the solicitor submitted that he had a duty of care as the owner and operator of the boat. ‘He wasn’t that sick,’ was Mr Cahalane’s reply.
The solicitor put it to the skipper: ‘In the end, the reason you put him ashore was because he flipped?’ ‘Yes,’ John Cahalane replied. ‘He was a danger to the crew.’
In his own defence, Mohamed Elabahout said the lump hammer and the small knife were tools of the trade.
He said he wanted someone to look after him because he was so sick.
‘I went up to him and said I want to go. I puked and fell from the second floor and was nearly killed,’ said the accused, who said he was then given painkillers.
Mohamed Elabahout said he went into the wheelhouse to issue a mayday and asked the skipper: ‘Please take me home.’
When it was put to him by the prosecution that he was suffering from flu, and not any serious condition that would warrant an emergency response, the accused said flu, and Covid, can kill people.
Judge Mark O’Connell said the accused was well enough to move around the ship and engage in negative behaviour.
‘He was unwell but not to a degree that would require the termination of the trip,’ the judge concluded before convicting the accused of criminal damage and ordering him to pay €3,000 in compensation.
The judge found the charge against the accused of threatening John Cahalane proved and taken into consideration.
