A judge in Hull has settled down with his law books to try to find the answer to the famous old question in the sea shanty: what shall we do with the drunken sailor?

Hull Crown court heard that the fate of Viatcheslav Poleshchuk, who crashed twice into Goole lock gates on the Humber and then asked police in a vodka-slurred voice "Can I have another go?", posed a legal brainteaser.

The estuary's combined ports are the busiest in the country, and a skipper with a bottle of vodka freshly inside him, as Poleshchuk admitted he had, is no laughing matter in charge of a 30,000 tonne scrap metal carrier in such waters. The 44-year-old captain was more than four times over the drink-drive limit with 157 milligrams of alcohol in his blood compared to the legal maximum of 35 when he was arrested last month.