A SECRET Intelligence Service officer told an inquiry into the loss of trawler the Gaul that there was no evidence to suggest the vessel was involved in spying.

The MI6 officer, who gave evidence by audio-link from another room and was referred to only as witness EB, was asked to examine the records of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) to see if there was any reference to the Gaul and possible spying missions in the 1970s.

The inquiry, being held in Hull, has heard how the Ministry of Defence ran a scheme in the 1960s in which trawler skippers took photographs of Soviet warships and passed the information back to intelligence chiefs in the UK.

Sheila Doone, of Sackville Street, Brierfield, lost her 34-year-old husband John when the Hull-based ship sank off the coast of Norway in 1974.

She is among many relatives who claim the sinking was suspicious after rumours the vessel was involved in spying on Soviet naval manoeuvres for MI6.

The inquiry has heard how two trawlers were used in covert and unsuccessful operations to recover lost missiles in the Barents Sea in 1972 and 1973.

The MI6 officer said: "There is nothing in the SIS records to suggest the Gaul was used for any purpose other than fishing."

He also stated that no intelligence officer was present on the Gaul when she made her last fateful voyage in 1974 and, according to the records, none of her crew was recruited for covert operations on previous missions.

He also revealed there was no evidence to suggest the ship had collided with a Russian submarine.

The reopened inquiry was ordered by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in 1999, after the wreck of the Gaul was found on the seabed and surveyed.

A further survey, in 2002, discovered the remains of four of the men who were lost.

The first 1974 inquiry into the sinking concluded that the ship was overwhelmed by mountainous seas.