News Item: 1st March 2010
BODY FOUND IN CANAL
Whilst transferring the John Pinkerton from Mytchett to Odiham the crew found a body in the water near Norris Bridge.
The following is taken from BCN225:
"Nigel & I were in the cabin when we had a strident call from
Dave Redman who was driving saying that he thought there was a body in the canal. So we reversed up to it on the off side and we all thought he was correct. I eventually managed to get through to 999 and report it. Police were there very quickly, and when we had 3 coppers on board we poled across and they agreed it was a body. They took photos and then got the boat hook and used that to tow the body across the canal as we poled the boat back. They then had to wait for the ‘body recovery team’ to arrive, who were in Southampton. It was fun seeing the police walking the plank to get on and off as we could not get very close to the bank and the wooden plank was only just long enough! Dave then had to give a statement as he saw it first and as he was driving he was ‘in charge’ of the boat. Being gentlemen we served teas all round. In the meantime we got messages that HCC were panicking before the predicted heavy rain forecast for Sunday. The canal level was being lowered, and there was talk that they were going to put the stop planks in on Sunday, so we had to clear West Hart on Saturday. We eventually persuaded the police that they could borrow the boat hook to hold the body and we could go, which we did after about a 2 hour delay. We got to Odiham eventually just before 5 o'clock."
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