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Stowaway fines: landmark rulings scheduled for July
Page 4
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• by David Harris The High Court is set to make a series of landmark rulings this July on the newstyle fines being imposed on hauliers who unknowingly bring illegal Immigrants into Britain.
The court will rule on three appeals against tines and its rulings will provide lower courts with guidelines on how to deal with such appeals in future.
The three appeals were heard Initially at Chester County Court and have all been referred to the High Court. They will be heard In sequence from 21-23 July, also in Chester.
Two of the three hauliers involved are being represented by Chester solicitor Tim Culpin of Aaron & Partners. Cuipin is also acting as the agent for the third haulier, which is why the cases are being held in the city. The hauliers include bane Transport from Kesh, Northern Ireland, and Tansey Transport, based in the Republic of Ireland. The third operator is from Belgium.
The biggest fine by far was against Leane Transport, which was fined a staggering 151,000 after 17 Illegal Immigrants ware found. This was reduced to £17,000 after a request for a review was sent to the Home Office, but the haulier decided to continue with the appeal.
Tansey Transport had a smaller 13.600 fine. Both these companies were fined after coming into the country at Dover.
The new fining system for drivers whose vehicles are found with stowaways on board was Introduced last December under the immigration, Nationality and Asylum Act.
A Hertfordshire haulier last week became one of the latest to be fined under the system. Mark Jordan, of Jordan & Sans, Waltham Cross, was returning from Italy via Dunkirk on Friday when immigration officials at Dover found two men concealed In his tilt trailer. He was fined a total of £5,000.
The trailer had been checked and sealed at Dunkirk but two men subsequently cut through the tarpaulin on the trailer's roof and hid inside with the cargo of brake discs. Jordan said he believed they must have got into the trailer while it was on the ship.
"There was no way I could have stopped these people getting in. It's totally unfair that I should be tined for this," he says.
Jordan, an owner-driver, was stopped at 01:00hrs on Friday 17 May and held until 05:30hrs when he was allowed to leave with his vehicle. He was personally fined £2,500 together with an identical fine on his company. It means that his total fine is £1,000 more than It would have been under the old £2,000 per stowaway system. He has not yet paid up.