The Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s Regulatory Compliance Investigation team (RCIT) leads on the agency’s law enforcement activities, from investigation and intelligence gathering to liaison with prosecutors, police and victims.
The 10-strong team is headed up by Neil Cunningham, a senior investigator with extensive experience in law enforcement and public protection.
“Perhaps what a lot of people might not know about RCIT is that we’re also the National Enforcement Body (NEB) for passenger rights for people travelling by sea and inland waterways,” says Neil.
“As the regulator, we’re here to ensure that passengers can access maritime travel fairly and that all travellers can access the booking process and travel safely and securely according to their needs.”
The team also uses powers under the Merchant Shipping Act to hold non-compliant vessel operators and individuals to account.
“We’re looking at whether a criminal act has occurred,” says Neil, “and that can be quite broad: it could be two fishermen involved in an assault at sea, adherence to regulations or procedure, or the conduct of the skipper and their manoeuvring of a vessel.”
Neil’s team examines incidents involving UK flagged vessels and those of other Flag states travelling through UK waters – if there’s a suspected breach of merchant shipping legislation, RCIT investigates.
The team works entirely separately to the Marine Accident and Investigation Branch (MAIB), which conducts safety investigation and investigates maritime incidents, but doesn't assert blame or culpability.
Neil is particularly proud of his team’s role in establishing protocols for work-related fatalities in Scotland, where all deaths in the workplace require a mandatory fatal accident inquiry. Developed with the Procurator Fiscal and Police Scotland, this important agreement helps all agencies involved to liaise and work together effectively.
Neil says: “We tend to work in parallel with other organisations, specifically looking at where there may have been breaches of maritime legislation. We don't have jurisdiction in foreign states, but we have international protocols in place, and we can work through mutual legal assistances treaties with international letters of request (ILORs).”
The team works similarly to police in their gathering and preserving of evidence, while securing potential crime scenes and carrying out interviews under caution. RCIT, however, doesn’t have powers of arrest and carry out their own prosecutions.
The team appears in series three of Channel 5’s Coastguard TV series, supporting Dorset Police with a manslaughter investigation into the death of David Haw, killed after falling from a RHIB in Poole Harbour. The case is complex and RCIT’s work is crucial in providing expert analysis to the Police for a successful prosecution.
“The remit and skillset of police is incredibly wide and varied – it has to be,” says Neil, a former police investigator with more than 20 years’ experience. “RCIT provides technical expertise and guidance for significant breaches resulting in serious pollution, fatalities or loss of life at sea.”
But it’s not always about enforcement. The team also encourages compliance through prevention and reassurance, and they’re keen to acknowledge a large majority of water users and industry professionals who are highly responsible and maintain compliant vessels.
Neil says: “We’re evidence and intelligence led, so if we start to see a trend where non-compliance occurs in the same area, for example fishing vessels deactivating their AIS (Automatic Identification System) transponder, we will engage with them as a group first and warn of the consequences of that breach.
“If a dangerous practice has been adopted and puts safety at risk, how would those responsible intend to justify a fatality? I’ve seen families devastated by loss of loved ones, often caused when commercial profit is put before safety and compliance.”
RCIT’s remit is international, and the team works hard to understand issues unique to regions and communities, including engagement work in areas that are surprisingly non-coastal.
“Our intelligence shows that a large majority of non-compliant personal watercraft users, for example, are those that travel down to coastal areas and live more than 50 miles from the water. But a trend could also be unique to a particular season or time of year.
“One of our longer-term strategies is to go faster from failure or breach to resolution or fix. In practice, that could mean we look at an early resolution if reasonable, justified and proportionate.”
