July 2015 A snapshot of the chaos across the South East as police say: We just cannot cope
POLICE cannot cope with the number of illegal immigrants who are piling out of lorries at motorway services, a crime commissioner warned yesterday.
Kevin Hurley, who is the Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey, said the Calais migrant crisis was placing a huge strain on resources and putting public safety at risk.
He revealed that 156 suspected illegal immigrants had been detained at one M25 services alone in the past three months, but scores more had escaped before police could hold them. He added that he was in ‘no doubt’ that thousands more have vanished after jumping off lorries at motorway services across the South East, particularly those on the M25 and linked motorways.
‘This is an escalating problem and the police cannot cope,’ the former Scotland Yard commander told the Mail. ‘The public are being put at risk as a result of this complete failure to secure our borders. It is a national scandal.
‘There is also a terrorism risk here, as many of the people coming here are from places of interest to the security services such as Algeria, Iraq and Syria. Who is to say they are not terrorists themselves?’ Meanwhile a council chief warned
that social services are struggling to deal with a surge in the number of migrant children claiming asylum after arriving alone at Dover.
The head of Kent County Council said the number of young migrants in the authority’s care has almost doubled to 605 in the past three months, leaving it with a £5.5million funding shortfall.
Kent Police refused to reveal how many illegal immigrants have been detained at motorway services in its area, saying the Home Office was the ‘lead agency’ on immigration issues. The Home Office said it did not have the necessary data to comment.
But Mr Hurley said that Kent Police ‘have obviously got a problem because they are not answering the questions’.
He also said Home Secretary Theresa May should take ‘full responsibility’ for the fiasco, adding: ‘Anyone who looks at the current debacle of protecting our borders probably shares the same exasperation as me.
‘On a regular basis our police officers are taken away from protecting the public to mop up hoards of illegal migrants.’ Mr Hurley revealed how Surrey Police have caught a total of 156 people piling out of lorries at Cobham services on the M25, including 20 in the most recent incident alone. In the town of Redhill, he said another 16 had ‘gone on the run’ in an industrial park.
‘No one knows how many are missing,’ he added. ‘Given that this takes out virtually half of the 999 response capability of the county and ties up our nine prisoner vans for hours, along with dogs and the helicopter, to say nothing of the county’s cells, this is now a threat to my residents.
‘We can’t respond to their needs or patrol adequately. What really concerns me though, is terrorism. It is clear that we are missing thousands of people.’
Paul Carter, leader of Kent council, said the ‘massive logistical exercise’ of supporting those under 18 who make it to the UK was putting an ‘enormous strain’ on children’s social services.
He told the BBC councils have a duty to care for minors who arrive unaccompanied at Dover, adding that numbers have ‘escalated dramatically in the last four to five weeks’ and are ‘rising day by day, week by week’.