Portsmouth October 2020 review – How the drama on the Isle of Wight oil tanker unfolded

While initial news feeds conjuring up images of swash buckling pirates may have been a little fanciful the events which unfolded on Sunday October 25 were unusual to say the least.

Concerns were first raised when the Nave Andromeda vessel failed to arrive in Southampton with the crew alerting authorities to a security incident at around 10am.

It was reported the crew had taken refuge in a ‘secure part of the ship’.

As the story began to unfold, the editor of shipping news journal Lloyd's List, Richard Meade, claimed a group of Nigerian stowaways had become violent after crew members tried to detain them in a cabin. He said: ‘They discovered seven stowaways on board the vessel. When the crew tried to detain the stowaways in a cabin they got violent and that sparked the security incident.’

What followed was a 10-hour standoff which was a eventually brought to an end by special forces who stormed the boat under the cover of darkness and wrestled back control of the vessel in just nine minutes.

The Armed Forces and in particular the Royal Navy played a prominent role in many of our most popular October stories - although not always for the right reasons.

At the start of the month reports emerged about a group of drunken sailors having evaded security guards to board RFA Diligence in Portsmouth Harbour where they were said to have been caught on CCTV smashing portholes, furniture and timber structures.

The ship, which is awaiting disposal, has a distinguished history having served in both the Falklands and First Gulf War as well as taking part in the rescue mission after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.

In happier news a picture released by the navy showed HMS Queen Elizabeth and her strike force together for the first time in the North Sea.

And several people who had played a major part in coping with the pandemic were honoured in the delayed Queen’s Birthday Honours, among them Steve Williams, operations director at city council-owned freight handling firm Portico, who stayed in Portsmouth and did not see his family for three months, and Barclays manager Lisa Griffiths, from Gosport, who was a Medallist of the Order of the British Empire (BEM) for her work in fundraising for QA.

Others who were honoured this month included retired soldiers Dan Arnold and Stephen James, who founded the Southsea veterans’ welfare group All Call Signs. They were awarded a Point of Light award by the Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who said: ‘You epitomise the very best of our country and I am honoured to be able to recognise your service.’

A story that made readers across the country wince was one that The News broke about Chris Savage, a labourer who was suffering so badly from toothache – after finding himself unable to book a dental appointment – that he pulled out two of his own teeth. As an anaesthetic – and to pluck up courage – he drank eight cans of Stella Artois before the first one. His story shocked health authorities, and showed that the departure of the Colosseum dental firm from Portsmouth in 2019 had had long-term effects on the number of NHS dentists in the city.

The month also saw travel chaos descend on the region on October 9 when an Amazon lorry overturned on the A27 close to Havant which resulted in the trunk road having to close for most of the day.

The incident caused huge tailbacks in both directions and a 62-year-old lorry driver was taken to hospital with serious but non life threatening injuries.

It was revealed that Portsmouth City Council had set up a £250,000 fund to fight a bid by Aquind to lay power cables through the city. It was a cause that saw community protests too, with residents lining the Milton shoreline.

And among the gloom of further lockdowns being announced, the month ended on – literally – a high note when Widley former paratrooper John Bream set what he hopes will be classed as a new world record for jumping out of a helicopter. He hopes to have secured the world’s highest freefall jump into water from a helicopter and a British record for the highest jump into UK waters.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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