A GOVERNMENT minister launched an outspoken attack on the Disney company, following the disappearance of cruise ship worker Rebecca Coriam from its vessel.

Mike Penning, the shipping minister, suggested the world-famous firm was "more interested in getting the ship back to sea than in investigating the case of the missing member of their crew".

The comment came during a Commons debate, staged more than seven months after 24-year-old Rebecca, from Chester, went missing from the Disney Wonder cruise ship, moored off the coast of Mexico.

The former Liverpool Hope University student is officially listed as missing at sea, having sailed on the Bahamian-registered vessel, in March, from Los Angeles, for a week-long cruise.

The disappearance was raised at Westminster by Stephen Mosley, the City of Chester MP, who condemned the so-called investigation mounted by Bahamas Maritime Authority as "appalling". And he raised the alarm over loopholes in international law which meant neither the British nor US police were allowed to investigate.

Mr Mosley told MPs: "One officer from the Bahamas Maritime Authority boarded the ship. One officer, three days after Rebecca's disappearance, for a ship with a capacity of 2,700 passengers and 950 crew. Little formal questioning of the ship's crew or passengers occurred, little effort was made to gather or secure evidence and little if any forensic investigation took place on board."