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Why is the UK wide open?
Page 12
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The Home Office refuses to budge on stowaway fines. Jennifer Ball reports.
A KENT HAULAGE firm facing an £8,000 stowaway fine has slammed the government for its continuing failure to address the problem of illegal immigrants entering the UK on trucks.
Damn Sherlock, company secretary at Sittingbourne-based EH Nicholls Jnr, reports that stowaways were discovered in a company trailer which had already been through all the CO2 and heartbeat checks at Calais.
The driver returned to pick up the trailer from the unaccompanied trailer park on board a P&O ferry, but when he arrived in Dover last week Customs found four stowaways.
Sherlock says the Government has not put adequate preventive measures in place and continues to penalise hauliers for its failings."The government continues to treat the symptoms and not the disease. The only way it can stop illegal immigrants trying to get onto trucks to get into the UK is by making the country less attractive and not offering them housing and food. That way there is no reason for them to want to come here."
Last year the firm had to pay a £2,000 fine after stowaways were found on-board one of its vehicles — this one had also been given the all-clear by Customs.
A Home Office spokeswoman refuses to comment on Nicholls' case, but says: "The civil penalty regime was in place until 8 December 2002 and was not found to be unlawful by the Court of Appeal in the determination of the Roth Case. Where lawfully imposed penalties have already been paid up hauliers have admitted liability and therefore it is appropriate that the Home Office retains the monies."
A spokesman for P&O says it is doing everything it can to help transport operators.