Death of Mike Lynch’s daughter still under investigation, Bayesian inquest hears

Cause of Hannah’s death remains unknown, while Suffolk coroner’s court confirms her tech billionaire father died of drowning

Mike Lynch drowned after his superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily, while his daughter’s death is still under investigation, an inquest has heard.
Seven people, including the British tech tycoon and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, died when the Bayesian sank in severe weather in August.
It is believed the yacht was hit by a meteorological phenomenon known as a downburst, which can be as powerful as a mini-tornado.
At Suffolk coroner’s court on Friday, an inquest opened into the deaths of Mike, 59, and Hannah Lynch, 18, Jonathan Bloomer, 70, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International and insurance company Hiscox, and his wife Judy, 71, a psychotherapist.
In a statement, Det Sgt Mike Brown from Suffolk Police said that a post-mortem was carried out on Mr Lynch’s body – after it was recovered by divers – by Professor Antonnia Argo in Italy, who gave the provisional cause of death as drowning.
He said that post-mortems of the other three bodies were carried out by Dr Tommaso D’Anna, with the provisional cause of death for all three victims still “under investigation”.
Nigel Parsley, the senior coroner for Suffolk, said the next hearing would take place on April 15, 2025.
The other victims of the Aug19 tragedy were Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s Antiguan-Canadian chef, Chris Morvillo, a Clifford Chance lawyer, and his wife Neda.
Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, survived the disaster and were rescued by a nearby yacht.
The Bayesian’s skipper, 51-year-old New Zealander James Cutfield, is under investigation for multiple manslaughter and causing a deadly shipwreck, along with two British crew members: Tim Parker Eaton, 56, and Matthew Griffiths, 22.
Mr Parker Eaton, from Bedfordshire, was in charge of the engine room, and Mr Griffiths, who lives in the south of France with his parents, was reportedly on watch when the yacht was hit by the storm.
Under the Italian legal system, being placed under investigation does not imply guilt and does not necessarily mean that charges will be brought.
The Bayesian will be raised and brought to shore as part of the investigation into how it sank within 16 minutes of being hit by the storm. It is lying at a depth of 165ft, around half a mile off the fishing town of Porticello.
Last month, divers recovered potentially crucial video equipment – including video surveillance systems, computers and hard drives – from the wreckage, which may help investigators find out what happened on the night of the sinking.
Mr Lynch, known as “Britain’s Bill Gates”, who founded the British software company Autonomy, had gathered friends and family onboard the Bayesian to celebrate a stunning legal victory. In June, he was acquitted in a US court of multiple counts of criminal fraud over the sale of Autonomy in 2011.
Following his death, US software company Hewlett Packard Enterprise has vowed to pursue a £3 billion claim against Mr Lynch’s family.
Det Sgt Brown said: “In the early hours of the morning of Aug 19 between 04:15 and 04:45 hours, the yacht Bayesian, occupied by 22 people, including 12 crew members and 10 guests, flying the British Flag and located approximately 0.8 Nautical Miles from the coast of Porticello, for reasons yet to be ascertained, sank rapidly.
“Of the total occupants of the vessel, 15 survivors were rescued while the remaining seven people were reported missing.  The searches began in the following hours and continued uninterruptedly in the following days until Aug 23 after the bodies of all those missing British Nationals subject to Inquest were located in the cabins of the boat.”
He said that the deaths of Mr and Mrs Bloomer were confirmed on Aug 21, the same day they recovered by divers. Mr Lynch’s death was confirmed on Aug 22 and his daughter Hannah’s on Aug 23, he added.
All the bodies were identified by a member of the Bayesian crew.