He told the BBC: "It was a textbook rescue operation but we were very fortunate because the sea conditions were benign. "The rescue helicopter picked up 12 casualties while the lifeboat attended to the other 10. "As far am I aware no-one has been seriously injured." It is understood that the chemical tanker was carrying phosphoric acid, which has sparked pollution fears.. Jack the Ripper, despite never having been identified, has been chosen in a poll as the "worst" Briton of the past 1,000 years. The crews abandoned their boats after the incident and donned lifejackets as they waited for assistance. Flight Sergeant Tim Dickinson, of the RAF Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination Centre based at RAF Kinloss, said all crew members were rescued by helicopter and lifeboats. A rescue operation has been launched in the English Channel after a collision between two ships.

The alarm was raised at around 2.20am when a chemical tanker and a cargo ship collided around 30 miles north-west of Guernsey. RAF Search and Rescue teams and coastguards joined their French counterparts in successfully airlifting 22 crew members of both vessels to safety. I wished him luck and filed a little report back to Dignitas. He cancelled his appointment the next day." Dr Irwin said he had already decided he "didn't want to get involved" because the man was not terminally ill - with six months or less to live, as defined by a Bill before the House of Lords.. I went to his flat on 10 January and we spoke for a couple of hours He said he'd make his own arrangement for a plane ticket. "The man was someone Dignitas asked me to go to see because he was severely deaf and couldn't understand them on the telephone," he said "He had already contacted them and booked an appointment. Police interviewed him twice last year but did not have enough evidence to prosecute.

The maximum penalty in England and Wales for aiding and abetting suicide is 14 years' imprisonment.Dr Irwin said that the allegation he had been proactively approaching people was "absolute rubbish". Dr Michael Irwin, who last week admitted giving "advice and encouragement" to five people to fly to Zurich's Dignitas clinic, stands accused of marketing his services to another ill man. He denies the claim. The pro-euthanasia group Dignity in Dying said it received a call last week from an 85-year-old man with cancer of the larynx and Parkinson's disease, complaining that Dr Irwin had encouraged him to contact Dignitas.A police source said: "We will be asking him whether he has approached people and been marketing himself." The source added: "He appears to have been proactive." Detectives will submit their file on Dr Irwin to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider whether there is a case against him. He denied the charge of "betrayal" and accused his internal critics of "one- dimensional thinking". Mr Cameron's strategy has provoked a right-wing backlash at the private weekly meetings of Tory MPs, who are furious that he has downgraded tax cuts, and dumped policies such as setting up more grammar schools and subsidising patients opting for private health treatment..