The captain of the doomed Costa Concordia cruise liner has turned himself in after Italy’s highest court upheld his 16-year prison sentence for his role in the 2012 tragedy that killed 32 people.

Francesco Schettino, described as “Captain Coward” by the press for abandoning the stricken ship, passed through the gates of the Rebibbia jail in Rome as soon as the judges made their ruling.

Schettino, 56, was convicted in 2015 of multiple counts of manslaughter, causing a maritime accident and abandoning ship before all passengers and crew had been evacuated. The ship was carrying 4,229 people, including 3,200 tourists.

“He said: ‘I trust in the justice system. The verdict must be respected. I’m handing myself in right now,’” his lawyer Saverio Senese said after speaking to Schettino by telephone.

Alessandra Guarini, a lawyer for relatives of the victims, said: “Justice has finally been served. I hope this brings a bit of serenity to those who lost their loved ones.”

The victims included a five-year old girl and her father, a musician who gave up his seat in a lifeboat for someone else, and a woman who died on impact when she plunged from the sinking liner into the freezing waters.

Elio Vincenzi, the husband of a woman who drowned, said: “Schettino really deserved this sentence, for his lies and for the lack of respect he had, even afterwards, towards the victims of that terrible shipwreck.”

Francesco Schettino, the captain of the Costa Concordia. Photograph: Laura Lezza/Getty Images

Prosecutors argued that Schettino’s recklessness was to blame for the fate of the ship, which struck rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio on the night of 13 January 2012 and capsized.

Schettino was widely ridiculed during the trial for insisting he had not abandoned ship but had slipped off the Costa Concordia as it rolled over, falling on to a lifeboat which carried him ashore against his wishes.

In a widely quoted phone call, a coastguard official is heard upbraiding Schettino and ordering him to “get back on board, for fuck’s sake” – an order the captain refused to follow.

The violation of the ancient code of the sea which states a captain must be the last person off a sinking ship only accounted for one year of the sentence handed down by a three-judge panel in the Tuscan town of Grosseto.

During the first 19-month trial, Schettino was accused of showing off when he steered the ship too close to the island while entertaining a female friend.

Schettino’s lawyers insisted the accident and its deadly consequences were primarily due to organisational failings for which the ship’s owner, Costa Crociere, its Indonesian helmsman and the Italian coastguard should have shared the blame.

“Schettino is the only one to have paid a price. He was made the scapegoat,” Senese said, adding that the defence team would consider an appeal to the European court of human rights. “Schettino admits he is responsible but not that he is guilty, because on the Concordia there was a command team, he was not alone and the ship had many problems.”

The defence argued that the collision was not the direct cause of the deaths, but rather the chaos that ensued due to the ship losing power, and that Schettino could not be blamed for the mechanical failures.

Costa Crociere avoided potential criminal charges by accepting partial responsibility and agreeing to pay a €1m (£850,000) fine. Five of its employees received non-custodial sentences after making plea bargains early in the investigation.