We can Exclusively reveal 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 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.
We spoke to Red funnel press office asking for confirmation if a member of staff had been arrested but the spokeswoman said that they were awaiting full details from the Police.
Red Funnel this afternoon have issued the following regrets the delays to its passenger vehicle ferry service between Southampton and East Cowes this afternoon due to an earlier police incident at East Cowes which was outside the company’s control.
“The 12 noon sailing from East Cowes is currently running 60 minutes behind schedule and the 12 noon sailing from Southampton is running 30 minutes late. The Red Jet Hi-Speed service between Southampton and West Cowes is unaffected.
“Red Funnel very much regrets the inconvenience to customers travelling via East Cowes this afternoon. Every effort will be made to make-up time and restore the scheduled timetable as soon as possible.
“Service updates are available at redfunnel.co.uk and via twitter at @RF_Service_News”.
A spokeswoman for Hampshire Police said they had arrested a man in relation to a ‘domestic incident’ and there was no risk to the public, however said they would not release any further details.
Red Funel have released the following :”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.
