A high-ranking Royal Navy officer has been convicted of abandoning a £143 million frigate by leaving a 'scared' trainee to oversee the ship's safety.
Lieutenant Samuel Hanney, an officer of the watch in the Royal Navy, 'negligently' left an unqualified trainee officer, Lieutenant Thomas McNally, as the only person keeping watch of HMS Sutherland.
The ship is a 436ft-long, Type 23 anti-submarine frigate, which was used to support a daring operation to intercept a Russian shadow fleet vessel off Britain's south coast this summer.
A military court heard that the trainee officer 'froze' after realising that 'no one was looking out the window' of the ship, with his superior officer instead spending around an hour at his computer rather than monitoring hazards on the horizon.
Lt Hanney stayed behind a curtain obscuring the computer light to produce meteorological charts, when his responsibility was to ensure the safety of the ship.
He was found guilty at Bulford Military Court of negligent performance of a duty for the incident on April 3 2025.
Prosecutor Lieutenant Commander Luis Canosa said: 'This is a case about negligence. It is about negligence of an officer of the watch whilst he was on watch on the bridge of HMS Sutherland whilst it was at sea.'
He added: 'The Crown says that he failed to maintain a proper lookout, he failed to maintain supervision of the second officer of the watch and he failed to oversee the rest of the bridge team effectively.
'The Crown says he was negligent in these three ways.'
Lieutenant Samuel Hanney, an officer of the watch in the Royal Navy, 'negligently' left an unqualified trainee officer, Lieutenant Thomas McNally, as the only person keeping watch of HMS Sutherland
LCdr Canosa said that Lt Hanney was a fully qualified officer of the watch and he was able to operate unsupervised onboard HMS Sutherland.
The ship had been travelling from Plymouth to Lyme Bay, Dorset, off the south coast of England and Lt Hanney was the officer of the watch at the time.
The court heard that during the early hours of the morning watch, Lt Hanney left his position on watch and vanished behind a curtain to complete a task on the computer.
Lt Hanney claimed he was away for only 14 minutes, but data collected from the computer said it could have been 21 minutes.
The prosecutor said that the computer was logged into the operational network between 04.09am and 04.30am.
He added: 'Whether Lt Hanney was behind the curtain for 14 minutes at his own admission or the 21 minutes that the log-ins say, the Crown says it was too long.'
Lt McNally, who was second officer of the watch that morning, reported Lt Hanney after he was left on his own to complete the watch.
He said that he was still in training, with only 100 hours completed of the 600 hours he would need to qualify, meaning he was technically shadowing Lt Hanney in his duties.
The trainee said that he thought that his superior officer had disappeared behind the curtain for more than an hour.
He said that he realised 'no one was looking out the window' and thought that this was 'dangerous'.
When he was asked why he did not confront Lt Hanney, he said: 'I was very nervous. I was very scared. I looked out the window and realised I was on my own and I just froze.
'Looking back now I should have had more confidence and said "I need you to come to the lookout".'
Lt McNally said that he reported the issue to another member of the crew and this was then escalated to the captain.
Commander Thomas Boeckx, a fleet navigating officer, said that officers should only be away from the bridge - where the windows are located - for two to three minutes at a time.
He said that, at a very maximum, this should be five minutes.
In a statement to the service police, read out by LCdr Canosa, Cdr Boeckx said: 'In relation to being behind the curtain for 14 minutes, you said, if done unintentionally, I would deem this as professional incompetence and the individual should be removed from the role and undergo more training.
'If done deliberately, I would deem this negligence.'
Cdr Boeckx said that the officer of the watch would use tools to help, such as radar, and complete other tasks behind the curtain so that the light pollution did not obscure the view of the other crew on watch.
Lt Hanney will be sentenced at a later date.