SUPPORTING the families of the three L’Ecume II crew members was part of a complex effort involving calls with family members on the other side of the world, often through translators.
Members of the States police’s Family Liaison Officer team gave the JEP an insight into how they meet a grieving family shortly after a tragic incident while being the link between investigators and loved ones, alongside their roles as police officers.
DS Lisa May oversees the 17-strong team, which grew from a headcount of 12 after two major incidents in 2022 – the L’Ecume II sinking and the Haut du Mont explosion – left resources stretched.
In any road traffic collision, homicide or unexplained death, she and the three other co-ordinators will decide who the best FLO for the job is.
“I’ll get phone calls in the middle of the night,” she said.
“You need your FLOs to be ready for the full day the next day. It works on goodwill and wanting to do the job.”
To balance their workload, DS May speaks to other supervisors and works out who is available – but the hours can become long when there is evidence to collect and deadlines are looming.
The first meeting can take place at home or elsewhere and it’s important that the family can ask questions, DC Foord explained.
“We are strangers in their houses, in their lives, and not knowing who the person is that they’ve lost,” she said.
“So it’s really trying to establish a good understanding of that person.”
There might be a post-mortem examination, blood tests, an inquest, or other court proceedings, which they help explain to the family. Each case is different, they said.
“It can help them sort of have some reassurance that we are doing a thorough investigation,” DC Foord added.
At the same time, the FLOs could be who the family give statements to.
When, in December 2022, the L’Ecume II sank in a collision with the freight ship, the Commodore Goodwill, DC Foord was one of a team of FLOs who became the main touchpoint for the crew’s families.
The collision caused the deaths of Jervis Baligat (31), Michael Michieli (62) and Larry Simyunn (33).
The subsequent investigation lasted three years before a month-long manslaughter trial which culminated in one of two defendants being convicted of a lesser charge under the Shipping (Jersey) Law 2002.
DC Foord’s job over the past few weeks has been to prepare the families for the sentencing, where they will hear a summary of the case from lawyers along with submissions, before two Jurats make a decision. They will also have to decide whether they want to speak to media at all.
“The moment they go out, we don’t know if it’s going to be an hour or several hours or possibly even into the next day. We don’t know that,” she said.
Additional considerations, DS May added, were that two of the families were based overseas (Mr Baligat and Mr Simyunn were both Filipino nationals).
Her team had to make sure they got “timely” updates to people who couldn’t travel to Jersey, to save the family from reading updates online. But with a seven-hour time difference, an end-of-the-day call in Jersey meant the middle of the night in the Philippines.
“We tried to overcome that by having a translator available every day and giving regular updates to them by email, and then having set times where we could ring our overseas family.
“Internet connection, time difference, all these things played into it.
“We sought to have their confidence that we were doing our best and to make sure that they were connected to what was going on.”
They spoke to the Jersey Filipino community to understand what cultural beliefs they might be missing.
DS May said: “It’s a layer that I found really interesting, to understand the differences and to help our overseas family understand what was going on over here.
“They were used to a completely different judicial system, and how they approach investigations is different to us.”
Despite dealing with families in some of the most difficult circumstances, both said the role was rewarding.
DC Foord said: “Every single family will always open my eyes in a different way and it teaches you a lot about yourself as well.
“It’s a vocation, it’s not just a role, it’s not just a job.”
