A Navy commodore gave “false” testimony in a £500,000 court battle for an injured sailor, a judge has said.
Joleen Williams, 39, suffered a spinal injury while eating dinner at the captain’s table when the frigate HMS St Albans made an unplanned turn off the south coast of England in October 2014.
As the ship turned, he was thrown backwards, his keel hitting a key protruding from a filing cabinet, while Commander Catherine Jordan’s heavy wooden desk pinned him against it.
The sailor was medically discharged from the Navy in December 2017 due to back problems and is suing the Ministry of Defence for around £500,000 in compensation.
In the case, currently being heard at Central London District Court, Judge Richard Roberts ruled in favour of the ship, finding that the ship’s crew were negligent in failing to secure the table to the deck and criticising the then-commander, now Commodore Catherine Jordan, for giving “untruthful” evidence.
The judge said Cdre Jordan gave “inconsistent” statements about where the table was fixed and changed her statement when she realised the table could not be fixed where she said it was.
The exact amount of compensation Ms Williams will receive will be decided at a later court hearing unless an out-of-court settlement can be reached with the Ministry of Defence.
Judge Roberts heard at a hearing in May that former chief medical assistant (LMA) Ms Williams was injured while sailing on the HMS St Albans off the Isle of Portland.
Ms Williams, from the Poole area, told the court she was ordered to eat dinner at the table of the ship’s commander, Catherine Jordan.
“At around 8 p.m., when we had finished the last course of dinner and the table was not yet cleared, the ship unexpectedly listed to starboard,” he said.
“There was no prior warning horn. I was thrown backwards in my chair with my back against the drawers/filing cabinet.
“The right side of my neck was pressed against the key in the top drawer of the filing cabinet, the table that was not secured to the deck fell on me, crushing me against the drawers as my jaw dropped toward my neck.
“I remember the key in the lock and handle hitting my neck and right shoulder so hard that the handle broke and the key bent in the lock.
“The plates and silverware on the table fell on me.
“I remember my commander calling out to the bridge and saying to them: ‘What the hell are you doing out there? You just destroyed our LMA.'”
“It took a few minutes for the other people in the cabin to clear the table off me.”
Allegedly, a former sailor who had recently been working in the finance sector was fired from his job after experiencing problems such as neck pain, headaches, low morale and spinal instability.
The Ministry of Defence defended the claim, denying that the captain’s desk was unsafe and insisting that the crew had been warned about the turn.
In delivering his decision, Mr Justice Roberts praised Ms Williams as an “honest witness” but said there were “serious contradictions and lies in Commissioner Jordan’s evidence which seriously undermine her credibility”.
He said the woman changed her statement about where the table was in the cabin in several of her statements, and changed her statement when she realised that it could not have been fixed if it was in the middle of the room as she had previously said.
“I find that Commissioner Jordan changed his statement in his third witness statement regarding the position of the table because he noticed that there was no fixing mechanism if the table was placed in the middle of the cabin,” he said.
His statements were inconsistent because “his evidence that the table was secured is not true”, he said, criticising Cdre Jordan’s “lax and negligent attitude to health and safety in his cabin”.
Cllr Jordan admitted his desk was not always safe at sea, saying it displayed a “substandard approach to health and safety in its cabin”, described by one expert, retired Captain Jon White, as “very poor seamanship”.
“I accept the plaintiff’s consistent evidence that the table in Cdre Jordan’s cabin was not secured to the deck,” he said.
“I find the Department of Defense’s evidence that the table was fixed to the deck contradictory and untrue.
“On the balance of probabilities, I consider that the table was not secured to the deck before the index crash and that this was negligence at common law.
“I found that the table had moved backwards at an angle, causing the plaintiff to fall backwards onto the key which was protruding from the top drawer of the cupboard.
“I find that the plaintiff has proved on the balance of probabilities that the Ministry of Defence was negligent and breached its common law duty of care and that this breach caused harm, loss and damage to the plaintiff.”
Although he found that a warning had been given, he said it would not have prevented Ms Williams’ injuries and also that Ms Williams had not personally contributed to the accident in any way.