Stowaway migrants slice their way out of lorry – and land in idyllic Cotswold village

This was the astonishing scene in a Cotswold village as a group of illegal immigrants cut their way out of a lorry as it waited at a set of traffic lights.

The stowaways had just completed a 4,800-mile journey from Afghanistan.

But instead of ending up in London or at one of Britain’s ports, they found their way to a picture-postcard village the heart of rural England. They escaped from the lorry by slashing their way through the tarpaulin covering the rear of the vehicle.

The whole episode was photographed by a couple who were in their car as they waited at the same red lights in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire.

‘We had just pulled up beside the lorry when all of a sudden a craft knife popped through the apron about 2ft across from us,’ said Richard Kaminski, who travelling with his wife Jacqui.

‘We couldn’t believe our eyes when these men climbed out one by one. They began walking away in a strangely orderly fashion but almost immediately a police car pulled up.’

Yesterday Gloucestershire Constabulary said officers, who were assisted by motorists who had counted the men as they emerged, said all eight stowaways had been rounded up.

The pictures emerged as the Daily Mail yesterday reported how two sudanese migrants who were rescued in the Mediterranean by a Royal Navy warship at the weekend had walked out of an italian reception centre with the intention of travelling to England.

The two men were pictured before squeezing into a taxi ready to take them to a bus station. From there, they told this newspaper, they would attempt to make their way north, via France, to the UK.

Mr Kaminski, 55, and his wife took these photographs and video footage of the Afghans emerging from the lorry at lunchtime on Tuesday.

The couple from London, who are freelance photographers, were taking a short break in the area.

Mr Kaminski said: ‘The men made a run for it through bushes and into a housing estate which was under construction on the other side. We showed the officer where they had gone and the next thing we knew a police helicopter was on the scene.

‘This sort of thing might be a common occurrence in the capital or

‘Round up the fugitives’

outside the major ports but it was not the sort of thing we expected to see in the middle of the Cotswolds.’

Mr Kaminski, said the first police officer was passing by and had only pulled up because the lorry failed to move off when the lights changed.

The helicopter, supported by officers on the ground, spent around 90 minutes above the village helping to round up the fugitives.

Regularly voted one of the prettiest villages in England with the River Windrush running through its centre, Bourton-on-the-Water has a population of 3,670.

Eight suspected illegal immigrants were arrested, as was the lorry driver, on suspicion of committing an immigration offence. They were due to be handed over to immigration Enforcement officers but two teenagers were taken into care.