ROYAL NAVY OFFICER FOUND GUILTY OF ABANDONING WATCH ON £143M FRIGATE

A Royal Navy officer has been found guilty of negligently abandoning his watch duties aboard a £143 million Type 23 frigate, leaving a trainee officer alone in charge of the vessel's safety. Lieutenant Samuel Hanney, serving as officer of the watch, left Lieutenant Thomas McNally as the sole person monitoring the 436ft-long warship, HMS Sutherland. The court heard the incident took place on 3 April 2025, as the frigate sailed from Plymouth, Devon, to Lyme Bay, Dorset, off the south coast of England. Bulford Military Court in Wiltshire convicted Hanney of negligent performance of a duty. Lt McNally reportedly "froze" after realising no one was looking out of the window.

Prosecutor Lieutenant Commander Luis Canosa told the court the case centred on three failures: Hanney's failure to maintain a proper lookout, his failure to supervise the second officer of the watch, and his failure to oversee the rest of the bridge team. The court heard that during the early hours of the morning watch, Hanney went behind a curtain to work on a computer, producing meteorological charts rather than keeping watch for other ships or hazards. Hanney admitted in a service police interview that he had been absent for 14 minutes. LCdr Canosa said data retrieved from the computer, which was logged into the network between 04:09 and 04:30, indicated the period could have been 21 minutes. Lt McNally, however, said his colleague had been gone for around an hour. LCdr Canosa said Hanney was a fully qualified officer of the watch, able to operate unsupervised aboard HMS Sutherland.

LCdr Canosa told the court the case was fundamentally "about negligence" by an officer left alone in effective command of a Royal Navy warship at sea. The prosecution argued that Hanney's absence from his post, whatever its exact length, left the frigate without the oversight required while it was under way. Lt McNally's description of freezing when he realised he was the only person watching from the bridge illustrated the position in which the trainee officer had been placed. The guilty verdict was returned following the hearing at Bulford Military Court into the events of 3 April 2025.