Exclusive: The owners of the illness- stricken cruise liner berthed off a Scottish port failed to inform the authorities that people had also been taken ill on its last cruise.

The owners of the illness- stricken cruise liner berthed off a Scottish port failed to inform the authorities that people had also been taken ill on its last cruise.

The London Port Health Authority told The Herald the Marco Polo's master did not notify them of any illness aboard the ship in breach of their "legal requirement" despite some passengers taking ill on the vessel's trip to Iceland, which ended last Saturday. It left for the fateful cruise the same night.

The response came as the ship's operators announced they were terminating the voyage at Invergordon where 340 passengers and 40 crew - a third of those aboard the boat - are believed to have the norovirus, and are being treated on board.

Roy Sillett, 74, from Norwich, died aboard the ship after suffering from a heart attack on Monday, and five people are being treated in Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.

A spokesman for the port health authority said: "The vessel was not visited when she called at Tilbury on Saturday. The reason for this is that the Master had not notified us of any illness aboard the ship, which is a legal requirement.

"The last visit to the vessel in May 2009 indicated that hygiene standards were satisfactory, and all the minor defects that had been identified during the full inspection in April had been rectified.

"There was, therefore, no other reason to board the ship on this occasion.

"As soon as we received notification that there had, allegedly, been illness reported by a passenger who disembarked at Tilbury, we contacted the shipping line and await a response.

"As the vessel is due to call at Tilbury on July 14, we will investigate the complaint in more detail then, and we will also liaise with the Scottish Authorities to find out when the outbreak began."

One passenger on the ship's previous cruise yesterday gave details of the illness which affected some passengers.

Rita Jones, from Walsall in the West Midlands, told the BBC that half-way through the Iceland cruise people began to get sickness and diarrhoea, with five out of the eight people on their table becoming unwell.

Her husband got the bug just after the cruise.

She said she was "gobsmacked" when she heard that more people had become sick on the ship in a subsequent voyage.

She added: "I would have thought that if they were aware of problems, maybe they should have delayed the sailing and given the ship a good clean or something."

The boat's German owners, Transocean Tours of Bremen, said what had occurred on the previous voyage was a few cases of gastro-enteritis that were unconnected to the current outbreak, and that the port authority had given the vessel "a clean bill of health" at Tilbury.

A spokesman said: "The ship had previously been on a cruise to Iceland. A very small number of people on board had suffered symptoms of gastro-enteritis during the cruise but this is unrelated to the current outbreak and port authorities gave the ship a clean bill of health when it docked at Tilbury."

Transocean did not respond to The Herald's inquiry following the London Port Health Authority's assertion that it had not been informed of the sickness on the previous cruise.

Last night a spokeswoman for Transocean Tours said arrangements would be made for all passengers who are fit to travel to disembark and go home at the "earliest opportunity", but she could not say how soon that might be.

Those passengers who doctors think should not travel will remain on board for continued nursing and will be sent home once fully recovered.

They also said that Mr Sillett's death was unconnected as he had "serious underlying health conditions." However, it is understood that he had been displaying symptoms of the virus. A post mortem report is due soon.

Dr Ken Oates, interim director of public health at NHS Highland said: "We are still waiting for the results of the tests to establish if this is indeed norovirus, but I would also like to remind people that norovirus, commonly known as the winter vomiting bug, affects an estimated 600,000 to one million people in the UK every year.

"We would like to reassure people local to the Invergordon area that the risk to their health is extremely low.

"Any passengers who are unwell are being prescribed bed rest and plenty of fluids."