Section 86

When any expenses, other than excepted expenses as defined by this section, are incurred by or on behalf of the Government, or are incurred by the government of a foreign country and repaid to that government by or on behalf of the Government, on account of a distressed seaman or apprentice either for his maintenance, necessary clothing, conveyance to a proper return port, within the meaning of Part IV of the Merchant Shipping Act 1906 or in case of death for his burial, or otherwise in accordance with that Act, such expenses, together with the wages, if any, due to the seaman or apprentice, shall be a charge upon the ship to which the distressed seaman or apprentice belonged, and shall be a debt to the Government from the master of the ship, or from the owner of the ship for the time being, or, where the ship has been lost, from the person who was owner of the ship at the time of the loss, or, where the ship has been transferred to some person not being a British subject, either from the owner for the time being or from the person who was the owner of the ship at the time of the transfer, and also, if the ship is a foreign ship, from the person, whether principal or agent, who engaged the seaman or apprentice for service in the ship.

The debt, in addition to any fines which have been incurred, may be recovered by the Attorney-General on behalf of the Government, either under the Government Proceedings Act [Cap. 121], or in the same court and manner in which wages may be recovered by seamen.

In any proceeding for such recovery the production of the account, if any, of the expenses, furnished in accordance with the Merchant Shipping Acts or the Distressed Seamen Regulations made under the Merchant Shipping Act 1906 [U.K. 1906 c. 48] and proof of payment of the expenses by or on behalf of the Accountant-General, shall be prima facie evidence that the expenses were incurred or repaid under those Acts by or on behalf of the Government.

For the purpose of this section, “excepted expenses” are expenses incurred in cases where the certificate of the proper authority within the meaning of Part IV of the Merchant Shipping Act 1906, obtained on leaving a seaman or apprentice behind, states, or the Attorney-General is otherwise satisfied, that the cause of the seaman or apprentice being left behind is desertion, or disappearance, or imprisonment for misconduct, or discharge from his ship by a naval court on the ground of misconduct, and expenses incurred on account of the return to a proper return port of a distressed seaman or apprentice who has been discharged at the port at which he was shipped, or at some neighbouring port.[99