Port staff ‘ found 40 migrants every day’

FORTY migrant stowaways were discovered every day by UK port official sat the height of last summer, new figures reveal.

More than 3,600 people were picked up in just three months after slipping across the Channel in lorries on ferries or in Channel Tunnel trains, the prisons watchdog said.

Official data showed a staggering 126 per cent increase in detentions at Dover Seaport last year.

In the first nine months of 2015, 4,785 people were picked up for immigration offences, up from 2,118 a year earlier.

The surge came at the height of the EU refugee crisis which coincided with chaos at Calais port and the nearby Eurostar train terminal caused by striking French sailors and farmers.

The figures were released in a report on detention facilities in Dover and Folkestone slamming the Home Office’ s“inadequate” response to the “not unpredictable” rise.

Although more than 90 per cent of migrants and refugees arrive in Greece, the soaring detention rate in Kent shows that they do not stop travelling there.

Throughout last summer migrants massed at Calais’ “Jungle” camp and made daily attempts to reach Britain. Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said last night: “We have improved facilities at Dover Seaport and continue to work on plans to open a new centre to deal with clandestine arrivals.”