Illegal immigrants we are victims in racket say hauliers
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• If it wasn't for trucks the number of illegal immigrants in the UK would be far fewer—no haulier would dispute this.
Every international haulier we spoke to had either refused money to take a family of immigrants to the UK--it seems the going rate is £500—or had discovered stowaways in their trailers.
But the hauliers stress that they are innocent pawns in an illegal immigration racket that protects the guilty minority.
Despite regular checks, these blameless hauliers unwittingly bring stowaways into the UK—and this will soon cost them a fine of £2,000 per immigrant. Failure to pay could cost them their trucks.
One owner-driver, who wishes to remain anonymous, checked his trailer in the queue for the ferry to Calais. Satisfied there was no one in it he completed his journey to Macclesfield, only to watch seven immigrants pile out. This story supports the theory that rogue hauliers accept money to take stowaways on board and then transfer them to different trailers while on the cargo deck.
If this is the way the racket operates then many of the drivers caught in Dover will, by definition, be innocent say hauliers— and the impact of the Home Office's proposed fines on these victims will be crippling. A small firm faced with, say, a fine of £10,00() for five stowaways will simply go out of business. It couldn't afford the fine and it couldn't afford to lose the truck. Instead, hauliers say the Government should be targeting the gangs of criminals with with French and Belgian officials.
Full view
Peter Reed from Danesbury Freight Services says the immigrants break into trucks in full view of the Continental immigration officers who do nothing.
"Customs (in Calais) turn a blind eye," he says. "The Government should get them to check every truck." Grant Rohan of S+K Haulage in Glamorgan supports this view: "Why are they taking it out on the drivers? Why don't they do something more positive about it?"
No doubt some illegal immigrants are opportunists who simply pick their moment to pounce on the trailer. But many are pushed onto trailers by gangs which are known to target certain truckstopsone that was mentioned time and again was the Jabekke stop in Belgium.
Drivers claim the men who organise this trade openly boast they have every type of seal, allowing them to re-seal any trailer after hiding the unfortunate immigrants. Graham McNeil of Brian Yeardley says: "The gangs know what they are doing, they can break seals and superglue them back up in a couple of minutes."
Hauliers claim the legislation will be flawed in other ways, too, adds Paul Smith of Exeter-based Madden Transport says he has handed immigrants over to officials in Dover when he discovered them in his trailer. "But if they're going to fine us now, I'll just let them go," he warns. Smith adds that some drivers are even afraid to check their trailers in case stowaways attack them.
Kevin Richardson of Sittingbourne, Kent-based EH Nicholls says that even with regular checks it is difficult to keep them out: "I checked my trailer in the morning and there was nothing wrong," he reports. "Then when I stopped to unload some wine 100 yards down the road 15 of them jumped out."
Massive delays
John Bywater of EJ Bywater adds that the threat of fines could also lead to massive delays at Dover with hauliers insisting on official checks for each truck: "If the Government wants to introduce the law," he says, "it's up to them to check as much as us."
E A copy of this article has been sent to Immigration Minister Mike O'Brien.