Police tell divers to stay away from North shipwreck

An exclusion zone was today thrown around the wreck of a fishing boat that sank off the Northern Ireland coast with the loss …

An exclusion zone was today thrown around the wreck of a fishing boat that sank off the Northern Ireland coast with the loss of three generations of the same family.

Civilian divers seeking to find the bodies of the Greene family were told to keep away and warned they would be interfering with a crime scene if they disregarded the order.

Sergeant Elvin Leech, head of the Police Service underwater search unit, said well-meaning unofficial searchers were posing a problem. "What they have to appreciate is that, because there have been fatalities, it's a criminal investigation and by going down there they are interfering with evidence".

He said police divers were due to go down to the wreckage of the Tullaghmurry Lasstomorrow, when the weather was expected to be suitable.

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But there is no plan recover immediately the bodies of fisherman Michael Greene (54) his son (32) and grandson (8) both also called Michael.

They have been missing since their fishing boat went down seven miles off its home port of Kilkeel, Co Down in the middle of February. The vessel was found last week on the seabed over 130 feet below the waves.

Mr Leech said specialist underwater surveillance equipment was arriving from England and would be used tomorrow. "We will use the special underwater camera to video the site in situ and get everything on record," he said. "Then we will be at liberty to start removing bits of wreckage to see if the bodies are inside".

Searchers are understood to believe two of the bodies may be in the sunken vessel but that Mr Greene snr, who was cox on the voyage, may have been washed away.

PA