A cargo ship captain has been jailed for six years after a North Sea collision that left one crew member missing, presumed dead, and exposed a chain of failures on the bridge. Vladimir Motin, from St Petersburg, was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter over the crash between the Solong and the US tanker Stena Immaculate off the East Yorkshire coast.
The Old Bailey heard that Motin did not keep a proper lookout on 10 March 2025 and did not use all available means to judge the risk of collision. The tanker was visible on the Solong's radar for 36 minutes before impact, yet Motin did not steer away, sound the alarm, summon help or initiate a crash stop. The court said he failed to leave enough time to take evasive action, a series of omissions that turned a navigational error into a fatal criminal case.
Mr Justice Andrew Baker told Motin he had fallen prey to his own complacency and arrogance and said he was a serious accident waiting to happen. Prosecutor Julia Faure-Walker said Motin had lied about what happened in an effort to get back to his wife in Russia. Motin later messaged his wife saying he would be guilty, but denied that he had been asleep or left his post. The judge said his account was extremely implausible and that Mark Angelo Pernia's death was wholly avoidable.
The victim's widow told the court that no amount of compensation could make up for the pain of the loss and its impact on the family. Defence barrister James Leonard KC said Motin was remorseful and had vowed never to go to sea again, while also calling the incident an aberration in his record. The sentence underlined how seriously the court viewed the bridge failures. In maritime law, a captain's duty to keep watch and react to obvious risk is basic; the judge concluded that Motin had broken that duty in a way that made the death of one of his own crew the predictable result.
The vessels involved were carrying hazardous loads. The Stena Immaculate had a crew of 23 and was transporting more than 220,000 barrels of aviation fuel from Greece to the UK. The Solong had 14 crew and was carrying alcoholic spirits and some hazardous substances, including empty but unclean sodium cyanide containers. Police said Motin's conduct endangered the crews of both ships. For Pernia's family, the sentence brought accountability, but not closure.
