Photograph by Rennet Stowe
The family of a British woman who went missing as sea while on a Disney cruise ship are suing the company in Florida, US for $75,000 (£45,000).
Rebecca Coriam, 24, was a crew member aboard the Disney Wonder when she went missing off the coast of Mexico on 22 March 2011.
Her parents have now filed a lawsuit against the entertainment giant for failing its duty of care towards their daughter, who is believed to have fallen overboard.
Coriam was a youth worker on the Disney Wonder, and was last seen making a phone call to a friend from staff quarters on board the ship at 05:45 GMT on CCTV video. She did not turn up for her shift four hours later and the alarm was raised, but Coriam’s parents claim the Disney was negligent in waiting four hours to inform the coastguard that she was missing, five hours to call the Mexican navy, and seven hours before calling the Bahamas police force.
The couple also claim that Disney breached established protocols for a person overboard, and once they did inform the coastguard of the situation, they gave “false and misleading” information about the ship’s location, which further hindered the search for their daughter.
Disney have dismissed the lawsuit as being without merit.