Record fines for drivers smuggling immigrants

RECORD numbers of fines have been issued to lorry drivers for carrying in illegal immigrants.

Drivers of heavy goods vehicles were hit with 3,552 penalty notices from April 2016 to April 2017, equivalent to one every two hours.

It is a 12 per cent increase on the 3,151 fines imposed the year before. Just 648 were handed out from 2011 to 2012.

Hauliers had to pay £7.8million in fines in the last financial year after stowaways were found – an increase of 49 per cent on 2015 to 2016. The statistics, released after Freedom of Information requests, suggest large numbers of migrants are laying siege to trucks in a bid to make it to the UK, despite the Jungle migrant camp at Calais being razed last autumn.

Dan Hart, of law firm Nockolds, said: ‘The majority of drivers take measures to secure their vehicles but it is increasingly difficult to do so when faced with the determination of large gangs of migrants.’ A Road Haulage Association spokesman said: ‘Hauliers take every precaution possible to prevent migrants getting on the back of their trucks but it still happens.’