A BOATBUILDER convicted for a yachting tragedy which led to the death of former Warrnambool woman Tracy Luke has had his manslaughter convictions overturned more than seven years after the incident.
While Alex Cittadini expressed relief at his acquittal, a survivor of the tragedy, Brian McDermott, was disappointed no one had been held accountable for the loss of lives.
Mr McDermott warned that further fatalities were inevitable unless standards were introduced for the design and construction of boats in Australia.
In April, a NSW District Court jury found Mr Cittadini, the 50-year-old Melbourne director and engineer of Applied Alloy Yachts, guilty of four counts of manslaughter by criminal negligence.
His factory foreman, Adrian Presland, was acquitted of the same charges.
Yesterday NSW Court of Criminal Appeal quashed Mr Cittadini's convictions and directed verdicts of acquittal. The trial judge had jailed Mr Cittadini for at least 18 months, but granted him bail pending the outcome of his appeal.
The Excalibur sank in September 2002 when its keel split in two in high winds near Seal Rocks, off the mid-north coast of NSW, on a voyage from the Whitsundays to Sydney.
Ms Luke, 32, Ann Maree Pope, 30, Christopher Heyes, 51, and Peter McLeod, 51, died because of the incident.
Skipper Mr McDermott and crewmate John Rogers were rescued after spending nine hours in the water.
Ms Luke was educated at Allansford Primary School and Warrnambool College before completing a bachelor of business studies at Deakin University.
She took up sailing in 2001 and joined the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron.
Outside court, Mr McDermott said he, the boat's owner and relatives of some of those who died were disappointed with the acquittal.
It was a shame that "no one has been accountable" for the loss of the "lives of four of my friends", he said.
Earlier outside court, Mr Cittadini said he was relieved with the decision, but was still extremely concerned for the families of those who died.
Both he and Mr McDermott referred to the ongoing mystery of who cut and rewelded the keel of the million-dollar yacht, acts which led to the boat capsizing.
The appeal court concluded the verdict was "unreasonable" and the crown prosecutor's final address caused "a miscarriage of justice".
Justice Peter McClellan said the crown had not con?tended that Mr Cittadini himself had cut the keel.
But the crown alleged he failed to implement reasonable measures for the supervision of the process of manufacturing the yacht and to provide adequate quality control.
"There was no evidence which could have allowed the jury to determine that the process of constructing a yacht was so lacking in quality control that the appellant breached his duty of care to the criminal standard," Justice McClellan said.
While a careful reading of the prosecutor's final address did not indicate he set out to "deliberately mislead the jury", Justice McClellan said his address "lacked the clarity which was required in the circumstances". AAP
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter