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Continuation of last email.
FAO. Steve Beacham, Sharpness Shipyard & Drydock Ltd.
Dear Sir,
It has come to the notice of the rightful owner of the above named vessel, Mr Alan Roberts of Liverpool, that you are in negotiations with a number of parties with a view to selling his ship to them. Mr Roberts is also aware that one of these interested parties has made numerous attempts to alert you to the fact that 'Planet' is not yours to sell, and that the Bill of Sale with which you have been furnished by Canal & River Trust is a fraudulent and worthless document.
The party who has attempted to alert you to the illegality of what you are doing is of the opinion that you may well have become innocently involved in the conspiracy put into operation in Liverpool on the morning of 19 September 2016 with the intention permanently to deprive Mr Roberts of his ship. It has been noted, however, that thus far in your talks and negotiations with potential buyers you have failed to mention or produce any documentation establishing a bona fide and uninterrupted record of documentation transferring ownership and title from Mr Roberts to the sellers named on your fraudulent and worthless Bill of Sale. For this and other reasons, Mr Roberts and I are inclined to take quite the opposite view, and we believe that you are and have been a willing participant in this criminal conspiracy from the day of inception.
The time has come, Mr Beacham, for you to make a decision. Either you continue to stand by your co-conspirators in this matter, or you belatedly recognize the fact that they have set you up for a fall, and join with Mr Roberts in assisting him in the recovery his ship. Should you wish to make direct contact with Mr Roberts or his lawyers, you may do so by first contacting me via e-mail at any time during the very short period remaining to you to extract yourself from the invidious position in which you have been placed by the Canal & River Trust.
Yours faithfully,
A.K.Dunkley (Shipowner's Representative)
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There was no response to the above e-mail, so yesterday morning I got to work on arrangements to seize and re-possess the ship during the Christmas/New Year break. As the only way to get access to "Planet" would be by water, I made arrangements over the phone for launching a RIB (with sufficiently little air-draught to pass under the Dock Road swingbridge at Sharpness without it having to be swung off) into the G & S canal close to Sharpness Dock. Having done that, I then phoned the port operators (Victoria Group) and told the Port Manager (Garry Strickland) what we intended to do, and why we were having to do it. The reaction to this, from all of the several different sources it came from, was in itself worthy of the telling, but I'll save that up for later. The gist of it was that we would not be given permission to enter the port, were strongly advised against so doing, and that Sharpness Shipyard would be advised of our intentions. I confirmed that we would not be taking their advice, by way of the following e-mail, copied to Beacham and Gloucestershire Police, and sent around mid-afternoon :-
FAO. Mr Garry Strickland.
Dear Mr Strickland,
Further to our telephone conversation of earlier today and to advise you of the intentions of the rightful owner of the above named ship, Mr Alan Roberts, I can confirm that Mr Roberts plans to re-possess his ship at sometime during the next few days. The repossession will be during daylight hours, at a time and date yet to be fixed.
The Gloucestershire Police will be asked to attend and will be re-acquainted and brought up to date with all aspects of the continuing unlawful detention of and attempts to sell the ship by Sharpness Shipyard and/or the Canal & River Trust.
As a consequence of access to the ship via the wharf gates in the northwest corner of the Dock being denied, boarding will be accomplished from a small boat with sufficiently low air-draft to enter the Dock from the canal without the need to swing Dock Road bridge.
For your information, I will forward a copy of an e-mail sent to Steve Beacham on Friday 15 Dec 2017 immediately following this transmission.
Best Regards,
A.K.Dunkley (Shipowner's Representative)
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. . . . . . and there, I thought, the matter would end until we arrived in Sharpness to board and repossess the ship.
Much to my amazement, however, at a few minutes past eight that night I got a quite remarkable e-mailed letter from a, apparently, much changed and now conciliatory Mr Beacham stating that the next day's sale of the ship would not be going ahead, and suggesting that we should suspend hostilities over Christmas and New Year pending a meeting with Alan Roberts and his representatives at which he hoped that mutually beneficial outcome for all concerned could be achieved.
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