The Herald of Free Enterprise

The assistant bosun whose job it was to close the bow doors was asleep in his cabin. The officer who should have checked assumed they were shut. There was no indicator light on the bridge because the company had refused to fit one as unnecessary.

She took on water as she picked up speed and capsized ninety seconds after leaving the harbour wall, coming to rest on a sandbank in shallow water with her starboard side above the surface.

A hundred and ninety-three were killed. A passenger named Andrew Parker made a bridge of his own body across a gap so that about twenty people could climb over him to safety.

The inquiry said the company was infected from top to bottom with the disease of sloppiness.