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Sitting on the fence
Page 18
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The Home Office refuses to release statistics showing how many 'fence jumpers' have been caught at UK ports, despite their importance to international hauliers.
Wards: Chris Tindall
THE LAUNCH of the UK Border Agency four months ago came with a rallying cry from Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith that Britain was now surrounded by a "ring of security".
The Home Office's new shadow agency consolidated the work of officers previously involved in immigration. border, customs and visa checks, and promised it would "control migration for the benefit of the country and implement quick and fair decisions".
It crowed about the million lorries and cars searched, and, interestingly enough, the 18,000 illegal immigrants Britain's border controls had prevented from entering the country in 2007.
This figure has now become more interesting in the light of the Home Office's refusal to release information saying how many of these 18,000 stowaways were `fence jumpers'.
Paper hideaway
The term 'fence jumper' is not a widely known one. This is unsurprising, considering the only reference to it CM has found is buried in a 92-page Home Office guidance document supplied only to UK ports for use when they are attempting to charge hauliers found with stowaways in their vehicles.
It defines them as: "People who have bypassed the UK juxtaposed control point to conceal themselves in a vehicle in the ferry lanes. For the purposes of the legislation. such persons are not clandestine entrants, they have not passed the control hidden in a vehicle and a civil penalty cannot be imposed in such circumstances."
So, there exists a defence for hauliers unwittingly carrying an illegal immigrant or five into the country Being found with just one stowaway risks a fine of £2,000, so imagine if you were able to prove they were not a clandestine entrant, but, in fact, a fence jumper?
And herein lies the problem. As discovered in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, The Home Office provides no guidance to drivers about how they should prove a stowaway's status. Haulier John English found this out the hard way when he stumbled across the fence jumper defence after one of his drivers was accused of smuggling stowaways through the UK control zone at Calais port. When he tried to rely on it, the Home Office wrote to English's MP saying there was "no evidence to support this allegation". This is despite it now admitting in its FOI response that "a record is kept of each search undertaken by UK Border Agency staff".
The Home Office also refuses to tell CM how many fence jumpers have been caught and detained at UK ports, because it claims the so-called `ring of security' around our country would be compromised by its disclosure.
Censored information
Transport lawyer Mike Oliver, consultant to Aaron and Partners solicitors, says that fence jumpers, or those organising them, could target ports with the lowest detection record, but he adds that public interest in knowing would help to inform decisions as to which ports, in preference, a haulier uses.
Instead, we remain in the dark. Between zero and 18.000 times last year, hauliers could have used the fence jumper defence and avoided months of hassle that English endured before his fine was dropped on fmancial grounds. There is a ring of security around the Home Office's statistics that, for the moment, remains impenetrable. •