Barry Sheen
British judge
Sir Barry Cross Sheen (31 August 1918 – 25 October 2005) was a British judge who served as Admiralty Judge of the High Court from 1978 to 1993. He is best known for presiding over the July 1987 inquiry into the deaths of 193 people in the Zeebrugge ferry disaster.
Early life
The second son of Ronald Sheen, FCA, Barry Sheen was educated at Haileybury College, also attending The Hill School in the United States for a year. He began to read law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, but his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. He joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and was first lieutenant of the corvette HMS Aubretia when she captured the German submarine U-110, with her cypher books and Enigma machine, in 1941. In 1943, he was given command of the PCE-842-class patrol craft HMS Kilkenzie.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Barry Sheen” as british judge. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as british judge. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4864732. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1918, 2005, 1978 and 1993.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Barry Sheen”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Barry Sheen primary sources, Barry Sheen archive and Barry research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Barry Sheen”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Barry Sheen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.