Stowaway jail threat
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• A driver could face 10 years in jail for smuggling 28 illegal immigrants into the UK. Julian Lee, who is due to appear in court tomorrow (Friday, 4 August), is alleged to have ignored immigration officials when they tried to stop his Iveco Ford truck at Dover.
The vehicle, which is thought to have been hired, eventually stopped on the A228 at Cuxton near Rochester after it had been followed by police and immigration officials for 40 miles.
Lee, who works for a supermarket, is charged with 28 counts of 'facilitation" for planning to bring immigrants into the coun
try without consent. The maximum penalty for this is 10 years. Gordon Linington, the Freight Transport Association's head of international trade, denies that publicity surrounding the case will weaken the industry's campaign against the fines. He says there is a "huge difference" between drivers unwittingly caught up in smuggling immigrants and those who do it deliberately.
Of the 30 people who were found inside Lee's truck two have claimed political asylum; the rest have already been sent back to France.