By DIVE Staff
Two offshore commercial divers and the director of a diving company have been sanctioned for falsely exaggerating their diving experience, potentially putting other divers’ lives at risk, according to the UK’s Heath and Safety Executive (HSE)
Following a HSE investigation, the two divers have had their diving qualifications withdrawn, and received police cautions for fraud alongside the director of a commercial diving company who assisted one of the divers in forging their logbook entries.
The HSE recieved a tip-off in December 2022, suggesting that the two divers may have obtained the closed bell qualifications required for them to work in the UK without having the necessary prior diving experience. Both divers had previously worked for contractors in the North Sea, raising concerns that their lack of experience could result in an offshore diving incident.
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Closed bell diving – also known as saturation diving – in which divers operate in a sealed, pressurised environment, is described by the as ‘the most advanced form of commercial diving’, with courses taking several weeks and requiring extensive prior experience. There are only two schools in the world that currrently offer the qualification – INPP in Marseille, France, and the Commercial Dive Academy in Tasmania
During its investigation, the HSE contacted both of the dive schools to obtain the records of the dives submitted to the schools by the divers as part of their enrolment process, before following up with a number of UK diving contractors to check if their claimed diving experience was genuine.
Dive contractors operating in the UK are legally required to retain records of dives for two years, and were able to provide the HSE with accurate details of dive depths and times for the individuals concerned.
The director of the diving company investigate by the HSE, however, was unable to provide records to the inspectors, despite having signed and stamped one of the divers’ logbooks himself. Records kept by the harbourmaster at the location where the diving was claimed to have taken place showed that no dives were made on the dates recorded, proving that the diver and company director had forged 10 dives to enrol on the closed bell course.
The second diver, who had declared 106 logged dives in his application ‘very short of experience’, with records inidcating he had, in fact, carried out just 28 dives, only one of which was deeper than 15m.
‘You need diving experience to become a qualified closed bell diver and making it up could put your life and other divers at risk,’ said HSE diving inspector, Phil Crombie. ‘Offshore diving contractors need to use qualified divers and these men could have worked anywhere across Great Britain.’
‘If we hear divers have made up their experience in order to get onto a closed bell course, we will look very carefully at all of the records available. A logbook is a document required by law, and making false entries is a criminal offence. The police cautions issued meant that we were able to have the qualifications withdrawn quickly by the relevant authorities.
‘Closed bell courses cost over fifteen thousand pounds for a diver – and these divers have ended up losing that without gaining a qualification. It’s just fortunate that they weren’t involved in any accident or incident.’
The HSE worked with the Fraud Investigation Team of Hampshire Police, leading to all three individuals admitting that they had made false entries into diving logbooks. Each received police cautions for fraud by false representation under the UK’s Fraud Act 2006.
Hampshire Police PC Alam Mahmmued said: ‘The men involved in this case did not have the requisite experience to undertake dive work of this nature, posing a serious risk of harm to themselves. This is in addition to their actions which clearly amounted to criminal offences.
‘We take any aspect of fraud seriously and we were pleased to collaborate with HSE to achieve a suitable outcome in this case. We hope this will in turn reduce the likelihood of any further offending. If offending continues, then these individuals face severe consequences in the criminal courts.’
