Trident widows plan Strasbourg case

FIVE of the widows bereaved in the Trident disaster are to take their “fight for justice” to the European Court of Human Rights after a fresh inquiry ruled no-one was to blame for the deaths of the seven crew.

Jeannie Ritchie, 71, who lost both her husband and father in the disaster, has revealed that she and four other Trident widows plan to take their case to Strasbourg after the the Scottish Legal Aid Board rejected their application for legal aid to pursue a judicial review in the Scottish courts.

Last February the families said they had been “badly let down” after a sheriff who presided at a new inquiry ruled that the trawler’s loss was not caused by the wrongful acts or faults of anyone.

The families claim the vessel’s instability alone caused the Trident to sink off Caithness in 1974, and that there was a design fault in the vessel.