What was expected to be a straightforward press trip for Portsmouth News journalist Daniel Bardsley turned into an embarrassing front-page story for the very company he had intended to promote.

Business editor Daniel (pictured) was returning from a press trip to Le Havre, courtesy of P&O Ferries, when the ferry he was travelling on crashed into a frigate, HMS St Albans, in high winds.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, 70mph winds caused P&O's Pride of Portsmouth to be blown off course and crash into one of the Navy's newest frigates as she tried to berth at Portsmouth harbour.

Daniel's trip had originally been planned to allow him to write a travel piece for the paper, which was supposed to give P&O some welcome good publicity after lots of negative stories about redundancies being made by the firm.

But being in the right place at the right time meant Daniel was able to turn his trip into front-page news with quotes from himself!

Daniel said: "My cabin had a grandstand view of the accident and I ended up spending Sunday writing the story.

"We were obviously way too close to the warship and the men working on the bow were panicking and leaning over the side to see if we were going to hit it. It was hard to believe it was happening.

"There seemed to be a jolt and a scraping sound and the ferry just ploughed on ahead."

An investigation into how the ferry could have hit the £100m warship has now been launched.

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