Why the Channel smuggling business will never end

‘Have you got a light mate?’ The shout came from the top of the slipway on Deal beach. Bill, who had just arrived on the shore with a boat of migrants, looked up. Between him and the car park, two men were walking towards him. It was 1am, but the bright full moon lit them up like daylight. As Bill passed, worried what the men wanted, he went to pull his fist out of his pocket. 

‘ARMED POLICE!’ the man yelled and sprang forward, rugby tackling him. Bill’s face and chest smashed into the pebble-strewn beach and his knees slammed into the hard concrete slipway. All around him crowded black-clad armed men. Bill lay there, too shocked to struggle.

‘I am arresting you for conspiracy to facilitate unlawful immigration…’. 

In February 2019, a judge sentenced Bill to eight years. It was in prison that our stories overlapped: I was sent to jail in 2020 for fraud.