This is the horrifying moment a passenger was pushed into the sea to his death by ferry crew after he tried to leap on to the departing vessel at a Greek port.

Shocking footage shows the 36-year-old man, who has not been named, sprinting towards the Blue Horizon ferry and frantically jumping on to the ramp just as the vessel was starting to pull away from the port of Piraeus last night.  

But two crew members, who were standing on the ramp, prevented the man from boarding and appeared to push him backwards. 

The latecomer tried for a second time to board the vessel – bound for Heraklion in Crete – this time with devastating consequences as the crew members violently shoved him backwards. 

In harrowing scenes, the man lost his balance and toppled into the churning sea below where he fought to stay above the water.

In separate video, the man can be seen being sucked below the foaming water due to the power of the ferry’s propellers. It is not known whether the victim hit his head as a result of falling from the ferry but his body was pulled from the sea a short time later, reports Protothema.

The two crew members can be seen looking down into the water at the man, as the ferry continues to sail away from the port. 

Witnesses appeared to suggest that the crew members had shoved the latecomer off the vessel’s ramp because he didn’t have a ticket – despite the fact that passengers are able to buy one on board.

‘Come on, did he throw him off the [ramp] and die?’ one witness asked, while another added: ‘He was probably taken by the propeller and sank.’ 

The Greek coastguard said the victim was plucked from the water unconscious and rushed to the General State Hospital of Nikaia where he was pronounced dead. 

The Blue Horizon ferry was ordered to return to the port of Piraeus after the horrifying incident where the captain and crew members were arrested, the Greek newspaper Protothema reported.

‘A man fell in the port of Piraeus during the sailing of the Blue Horizon. He was recovered unconscious and taken to the General State Hospital of Nikaia. The ship is returning to Piraeus,’ the coastguard said. 

Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, Greece’s shipping minister, said: ‘I express my sadness for the tragic incident in the port of Piraeus in which one person lost his life. 

‘All the necessary actions are being taken by the Piraeus Port Authority to clarify the case and assign responsibility.’ 

Psychos 

The Hike

by Lucy Clarke (Harper £14.99, 384pp)

There is more than a whiff of a Reese Witherspoon film about this tale of four long-term girlfriends setting out on a reunion hike in the Norwegian wilderness.

Each girl brings a lot more baggage than their carefully packed backpacks. They have secrets galore, both from each other and from themselves as the dangers of the trip escalate. Facing their own personal demons becomes as challenging as the terrain.

The news that there’s the body of a dead woman at the bottom of a mountain doesn’t help. The reader knows a bit more than the characters, which is a clever plot device, while the landscape, the girls’ fight for survival against the harsh terrain and an unknown danger make the perfect ingredients for a Witherspoon film like Wild. It’s a pretty good book, too.

Death of a Bookseller 

by Alice Slater (Hodder £14.99, 384pp)

Two young women working in a bookshop in the gentrifying London suburb of Walthamstow quickly become entangled in each other’s lives. Roach is addicted to true crime podcasts and sees the bookshop as a refuge from the real world.

On the surface Laura is the more straightforward of the pair. She loves everything about the bookshop, including the customers.

The action takes off after Roach, shamelessly rummaging in Laura’s handbag, discovers her secret connection with a real-life crime and becomes obsessed with it.

Both characters are convincing despite not being very relatable. But the really terrific thing about the book is how the writer conjures that slightly mysterious quality that people working in bookshops always have.

These shops all have their mysteries, a charm that an Amazon package arriving on the doormat will never be able to recreate.

That said, this book is worth your time and effort however you choose to buy it.

The Fall

by Louise Jensen (HQ £8.99, 480pp)

In a beautifully written prologue we meet cousins Cally and Tegan, who are ballet dancing on a stage watched by their identical twin sister mothers, Kate and Beth.

There is a warning that the future holds a tragedy which will divide this close family.

Cut to several years later and the surprise 40th birthday party of Kate and Beth on their family farm.

And sure enough, as foretold, the news comes that Cally is lying in a coma after falling from a bridge onto some rocks below.

The police investigating soon become convinced the circumstances are suspicious and the family slowly starts to bend under the pressure.

This is a thought-provoking account of modern family dynamics tested by financial pressures, social media and misplaced loyalties.