Family pay tribute to co-defendant of lacking British tech tycoon

Strava has revealed the tragic final moments of a co-defendant of Mike Lynch who died after being struck by a car just days before the tycoon’s luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily. 

Stephen Chamberlain, who was fatally injured following the crash on Saturday before dying early today, is a former colleague of Mr Lynch – who is now missing after £30million vessel the Bayesian sank in the early hours of yesterday. 

Posts from his Strava account show the 52-year-old was six miles into a morning run in Cambridgeshire before his trail stopped on Newmarket Road in the village of Stretham. Police said the crash was not suspicious and spoke to the driver at the scene.

Mr Chamberlain’s family today paid tribute to the ‘much-loved husband, father, son, brother and friend’, as his son, Teddy, appealed to well-wishers to complete the run as a tribute to his father. 

Teddy wrote in a public post on Strava: ‘We are planning to complete this run for dad, if any of you would like to pay tribute and run it with us I will keep you updated. I’m sure we will make a post about the day and time at a later date. He was such an incredible man and the pain we feel is unimaginable.’  

Mr Chamberlain was vice president of finance at Autonomy, the tech firm founded by Mr Lynch, and faced the same charges of fraud and conspiracy as his former boss for allegedly scheming to inflate the company’s value before a £9billion sale to Hewlett-Packard.

Both men were left elated after being acquitted of all 15 charges by a jury in San Francisco in June after having the threat of jail hanging over them for 13 years, with Mr Lynch telling how he felt he had been granted a ‘second life’ and holidaying on his yacht as part of a ‘victory’ trip. 

In a separate statement released through Cambridgeshire Police, Mr Chamberlain’s family said: ‘Steve was a much-loved husband, father, son, brother and friend. He was an amazing individual whose only goal in life was to help others in any way possible.

‘He made a lasting impression on everyone who had the privilege of knowing him. He will be deeply missed but forever in the hearts of his loved ones.’ 

Last night his lawyers said in a separate statement: ‘Our dear client and friend Steve Chamberlain was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out running.

‘He was a courageous man with unparalleled integrity. We deeply miss him.

‘Steve fought successfully to clear his good name at trial earlier this year, and his good name now lives on through his wonderful family.’

It is not known if Mr Lynch had been informed of his former colleagues accident before he himself went missing yesterday morning. He was fatally injured on Saturday but had his life support switched off early this morning, MailOnline understands. 

Police have said there’s nothing to suggest anything suspicious in his death and no arrests have been made after the driver of a car stayed at the scene following the collision. 

In his first interview after being acquitted, Mr Lynch said that it would have been ‘difficult to survive’ prison – where the men could have faced a 25-year sentence.

He told The Times: ‘I’d had to say goodbye to everything and everyone, because I didn’t know if I’d ever be coming back. If this had gone the wrong way, it would have been the end of my life as I have known it in any sense.’

It comes as investigators begin to probe what caused Mr Lynch’s yacht to sink, an event described as ‘unprecedented’. 

The tycoon remains missing alongside his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo, who represented Mr Lynch in his recent legal battle.

Hannah had just completed her A-Levels and gained a place to study English at Oxford. 

The Bayesian – which had been carrying 10 crew members and 12 passengers – had been moored just 300 metres from the coast near Palermo when it was hit by a terrifying waterspout at around 5am, with the ship’s captain saying those on board were blindsided and ‘didn’t see it coming’.

Tornado-speed winds flipped the superyacht so quickly that people on board were left swimming for their lives with those who made it off stranded in the pitch black water as the storm raged around them.

One maritime expert has said suggested that despite potentially facing winds of up to 100mph as a result of the extremely rare phenomenon the boat should have been able to withstand the force of the gales, raising questions about how it ended up sinking.

Search teams have already found the body of one man, thought to be an onboard chef, and there are fears that more bodies will be found in the hull of the ship by specialist divers today, while some survivors – including the captain – remain in hospital.

Mr Lynch, who was worth an estimated £852million, had taken his family and friends on the ‘victory’ trip after being acquitted of fraud charges.

However, the dream trip, hosted by the 59-year-old father-of-two from Suffolk who claimed he was living a ‘second life’ after almost a year under house arrest, turned into a nightmare and tragedy struck.

During yesterday’s frantic search it was reported that bodies had been seen through the portholes in some of the cabins, although it is believed that divers have not been able to get inside the vessel due to furniture obstructing the way in.

Firefighter divers trained to work in tight spaces were flown in from Rome and Sardinia to aid in the operation yesterday, but in their first search below the surface they failed to gain access to the vessel.

Officials have said those on board the boat were in ‘the wrong place at the wrong time’, with hope already fading that anyone else will be found alive this morning.

James Catfield, the captain of the yacht, told La Repubblica ‘we didn’t see it coming’ as he was taken to hospital.

The yacht sank as a fierce storm battered the area overnight, with local meteorologists warning that 30C temperatures – warmer than normal – had amplified the risk of an extreme weather event.

Survivors were dramatically rescued from the water in the after=math including one woman who heroically saved a one-year-old British boy.

Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, 57, who was among the rescued recalls the boat suddenly ’tilted’ at around 4am, before glass began shattering.

One maritime expert has said that the sinking of the boat was ‘unprecedented’ and that a vessel the size of the Bayesian should not have been able to capsize in that weather.

Matthew Schanck, Chairperson for the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, said the tornado over water, known as a waterspout, that struck the 184ft yacht with 22 people on board should not have caused it to sink.

He told GB News: ‘It’s sort of unprecedented, really, to have a vessel of that size, being certified and commercially operated, to suffer such a significant event in weather that was pretty severe by all accounts, but should have been within the limits of the vessel itself.’

He also told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the sinking itself appears to have happened ‘very, very quickly’.

‘There isn’t really much the captain or the crew could do to prepare for these events given how rare they are,’ he said.

‘Reports that people who were in the life raft have had to enter the life raft from the water, and that indicates to me that this emergency has happened very, very quickly. People haven’t had time to enter the life raft from the vessel, they’ve had to enter from the water.

‘My understanding is that the flare has gone up from the life raft, according to the reports. We don’t know if the vessel had time to send out any electronic distress signals, to use its radio or any other equipment to alert the authorities, but the eyewitness accounts from the shore and the anchorage state they saw the red flare.

‘One of the captains from the anchorage said he saw the vessel there one minute and then the next minute the vessel was gone and all he saw was the red flare which indicates to me that this has been a catastrophic incident which has gone very quickly.’

One expert at the scene of the disaster who declined to be named said an early focus of the investigation into what happened would be whether the yacht’s crew had had time to close access hatches into the vessel before the storm struck.

Cambridgeshire Police had appealed for witnesses after the collision between a pedestrian and a car in Newmarket Road in Stretham, Cambridgeshire, saying a man in his 50s was in critical condition.

A force spokesman said: ‘The man, who was in his 50s and from Longstanton, was taken to hospital with serious injuries where he remains.

‘The driver of the car, a 49-year-old woman from Haddenham, remained at the scene and is assisting with enquiries.’