A LEADING wreck hunter has quit a planned underwater survey to examine a trawler that sank with the loss of 36 lives, including six North-East men.

Keith Jessop, who salvaged gold bullion worth £44bn from HMS Edinburgh in 1981, was to have taken part in the survey this summer in the Barents Sea, off Norway.

The Hull-registered vessel, Gaul, went down in 1974 in mysterious circumstances.

Among the dead were Ronald Bowles, of Wallsend, and James Wales, John O'Brien, Neil Peterson, James Woodhouse and James McKellar, all from North Shields, Tyneside.

Mr Jessop, a former Royal Marine, said he had effectively been sidelined by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch.

Mr Jessop, 69, said he was hired as an expert and given the job of drawing up specifications for the remotely-operated vehicle dive.

But he said: "They want to push me into a small room and look at a monitor screen. There is no way on earth I would accept to go on those terms.''

He dismissed as "nonsense" allegations he was leaving amid a wrangle over money.