Stowaway who clung on to holiday Britons’ motorhome for 4 days
A FAMILY arrived home from a foreign holiday to discover a Sudanese stowaway had hidden under their luxury motorhome for four days.
Lisa and Mick Patterson were about to start unpacking the vehicle when their son spotted a man walking away.
When they confronted him he admitted he had secretly hitched a lift through French and British customs.
They believe he hid under the £35,000 motorhome in a campsite in Caen, northern France, for three days before balancing on the axle as they made their way home via Calais.
The 6ft youth, who claimed to be a minor, was arrested by police after his dangerous journey in sweltering conditions and is now being dealt with by Home Office officials.
Mrs Patterson, 50, of Great Horkesley, near Colchester in Essex, said: ‘My son said there was a black man walking down the street. We live in the sticks and no one walks down here.
‘I ran out and called him over. He was a really nice person from the English he spoke.’
She added: ‘I was so shocked. I asked him where he had been and he went back under and showed me. He had been balancing across the back axle.
‘We asked him how long he had been under there and he held up his fingers and said, “Four”. We said, “Four hours?” and he said, “No, days”.
‘I can’t believe how we got through border control. There were police standing around but they didn’t pull anyone over.’ Mrs Patterson and her farm manager husband Mick, also 50, went on holiday in France with their student daughter Summer, 17.
The stowaway, who is believed to be 17, emerged from under their 25ft-long Auto-Trail Arapaho motorhome when the family returned earlier this month.
He was offered a packet of Mini Cheddars and a bottle of Orangina and happily waited for police to arrive after Mrs Patterson called 999. He would have spent the best part of a day in the 3ft gap above the rear axle of the vehicle. The drive from Caen to Calais is three-and-a-half hours, while the time spent on the ferry and in both ports would have been around two-and-a-half hours. After reaching Dover, the Pattersons spent more than two hours driving non-stop to their home. Tesco worker Mrs Patterson believes the stowaway targeted them when they were in Caen because a man had tried to get into a friend’s mobile home while they were there.
The area was dubbed the ‘new Calais’ by lorry drivers earlier this year after security was tightened at the port and the notorious Jungle camp closed, forcing migrants to find alternatives.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘Immigration Enforcement was contacted by Essex Police. A male who claimed to be from Sudan was arrested for immigration offences.
‘He was age-assessed as a minor and passed into the care of social services. His case will be progressed in accordance with immigration rules.’ Floods
‘He was a really nice person’
‘In the care of social services’
and internal conflict in Sudan have displaced tens of thousands of citizens.
In April two illegal immigrants stowed away under a school coach returning from France.
After a five-hour journey from Calais to Manchester, the coach had stopped at a shopping centre for pupils from Prestwich Arts College to get off when the duo emerged.
The pair are thought to have clung on beneath the chassis as the coach thundered up the motorway before seizing their opportunity to flee. The driver gave chase but the men ran off.
A week earlier a stowaway had made his way to Suffolk by hiding in the wheel arch of a coach carrying Bury St Edmunds Rugby Club’s under-15s side.
And in December pupils at the King’s School in Chester arrived back from a French trip to find an illegal immigrant wedged in their coach’s engine.