U.K. court jails Russian captain for 6 years for fatal North Sea crash

A UK court on Thursday (February 5, 2026) handed a six-year jail sentence to the Russian captain of a cargo ship that hit an anchored oil tanker in the North Sea last year, killing one crew member.

Vladimir Motin was an “accident waiting to happen,” Judge Andrew Baker said as he sentenced the captain at London’s Old Bailey court for the manslaughter by gross negligence of Filipino sailor Mark Angelo Pernia.

“This was a gross failure to identify the collision risk,” he said.

The 38-year-old seaman who died had been married with a young child. He was lost at sea following the crash and his body has never been recovered

Pernia’s wife had been pregnant with the couple’s second child at the time of the “wholly avoidable” accident, the judge said.

“The blame for it lies squarely at your hands,” he said, adding that “no sentence can bring Mr. Pernia back or remove the great pain or grief for the loss of him”.

A jury earlier this week convicted Motin, from Saint Petersburg, after eight hours of deliberation.

The collision at speed in March 2025 set both vessels ablaze and triggered a massive offshore rescue operation.

The jury was told Motin was a “highly trained” sailor who had captained the cargo ship the Solong for 15 years.

But the prosecution insisted that he “did nothing to avoid the collision” in which the Solong collided with the oil-laden Stena Immaculate.

“He could, and should, have acted differently” when his ship was on “an obvious collision course” with the tanker, barrister Tom Little told the trial.

Speaking earlier, prosecutor Michael Gregory said the accident had been caused by Motin’s “truly exceptionally bad negligence”.