Authorities in Greece have questioned Tom Bradby’s account of the death of a man in a Greek port on Sunday, saying several people besides the ITV broadcaster tried to save the pensioner whose car plunged into the water.
Bradby, recently appointed the main News at Ten anchor, tweeted that he was “shaking with shock and anger” after watching the man “commit suicide by driving his car off the harbour wall” in Rafina, a busy fishing and ferry port east of Athens where Bradby was on holiday with his family.
The journalist said he had dived in to help but that “of the nine or 10 customs officials and police on the quay only one went in … The rest watched.”
Just watched an elderly man commit suicide in Greece by driving his car off the harbour wall in Rafina.
— tom bradby (@tombradby) August 16, 2015
Of the 9 or 10 customs officials and police on the quay only 1 went in to try and get him out as the car sank. The rest watched. Jesus...
— tom bradby (@tombradby) August 16, 2015
Am shaking with shock and anger. So much for the Greek holiday trade being business as usual.
— tom bradby (@tombradby) August 16, 2015
But the coastguard said in a statement that “officers and two citizens” tried to rescue the man, named as Ioannis Venardos, 70, from Athens. It also said it was too soon to be sure Venardos had deliberately driven into the sea, noting that a 33-year-old man had died in a similar incident in June.
A coastguard spokesman told the Times that Bradby’s “recollection and assessment of the course of events” may have been “blurred”, adding that four officers had rushed to the scene and immediately alerted an underwater rescue team, while another had jumped in to try to save the man.
Witnesses told other media at the port that Bradby had tried in vain to open the car’s doors and windows after it had first stopped on the harbour’s edge and then reversed into the water. But the driver did not seem to want help and the car had sunk in less than a minute, they said.
Studies suggest the suicide rate in Greece has soared as the country has plunged into deep recession, with one team of researchers concluding that the introduction of sweeping austerity measures as part of the country’s 2010 international bailout led, over the following two years, to a 35% increase in suicides.
Police said the incident was still being investigated and may yet prove to be an accident, with the driver having simply lost control of his vehicle on the harbour edge.
