Four men detained after cargo ship crew threatened in Thames Estuary

File photo: A Grimaldi Lines ship in Hamburg, Germany
Axel Ahoi/Unsplash
Megan White22 December 2018

Four men have been detained under the Immigration Act after a gang of stowaways found on a cargo ship allegedly threatened the crew.

The men had reportedly escaped from a cabin in which they were being held and stormed the bridge of the ship brandishing iron tubes and other makeshift weapons.

The ship's operator, Grimaldi Lines, told Sky News that the stowaways were calling on the crew to navigate closer to the coast in the Thames Estuary so they could jump and swim to Britain.

But Essex Police confirmed they had secured the ship, the Grande Tema, around 11pm on Friday.

The 71,000-tonne ship which set off from Lagos, Nigeria, on December 10.

Paul Kyprianou, a spokesman for Grimaldi Lines, told Sky News on Friday morning: "We found four stowaways on the vessel.

"The vessel was coming from Nigeria and was bound to Tilbury, and those four stowaways were in the cabin, and today they managed to escape from the cabin and they started threatening the crew, requesting the master of the vessel navigating very close to the coast.

"That request was probably because they wanted to jump and reach the British coast.

"The crew reacted and they locked themselves in the bridge of the vessel and so they are safe, we haven't had any injuries.

"They managed to get whatever they could find on the vessel... pieces of iron, tubes and things like that and this is what they used in order to threaten.

"The vessel is under the command of the crew there is no question about that... the only problem is that we have four people who are free on the deck and they are threatening crew members and requesting they get close to the coast."

Essex Police said the vessel, in the Thames Estuary, was boarded at around 11pm on Friday and was taken to the Port of Tilbury in Essex.

An Essex Police spokesman said: “We have now secured a vessel in the Thames Estuary.

“The vessel was boarded and secured shortly after 11pm on Friday, December 21 and will now be brought safely into dock at the Port of Tilbury.

“Four men have been detained under the Immigration Act.

“It followed reports at around 9.15am today of concerns for the safety of crew after a number of people were found on board.

“No-one on board the vessel has been injured.”

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