As previously first reported we exclusively revealed that the a man has been arrested on board a busy Red funnel this lunchtime.
Police were called to the ferry port in East Cowes just before the midday sailing.
A call was made by a concerned member of staff on board the Red Eagle ferry to Police after the man became very abusive toward other staff and passengers.
One man aboard the ferry who spoke to us said minutes earlier that there was a lot of shouting and banging on board. The man looked like he’d been drinking. He was being very loud and aggressive towards anyone who approached him. Some of the passengers on board thought he was a member of the red funnel staff.
Police officers rushed to the scene just before 12.00pm as the vessel was about to sail and the man was detained handcuffed and led away by Police.
Staff on board the ferry said that they had launched an internal investigation into the matter involving a member of staff.
A Spokeswoman from Red funnel has confirmed that a staff member has been detained by Police :
“Red Funnel can confirm that an engineer on the 1200 hrs sailing from East Cowes was arrested by police before the vessel was due to sail. The company received no prior notification of the arrest and as such customers on this sailing were delayed by up to 60 minutes before the vessel was cleared to sail. This also had a knock-on-effect by delaying the 1200 hrs sailing from Southampton by 30 minutes.
