This week’stvreviews

Minus the fear and desperation that characterises the journeys made by actual asylum seekers, Channel 4’s Smuggled is a curious programme that raises more questions than it answers

Monday evening left me feeling disappointed, annoyed and somewhat puzzled at the border security situation we have in the UK. Filmed before the incident in which 39 foreigners were found dead in the back of a lorry in Essex, and delayed for a week in the wake of it, Channel 4 conducted its own investigation into how easy it would be to “break into Britain” with Smuggled.

To do this they found eight willing volunteers, defeating the point of the experiment due to them being British passport holders, who would try eight different routes and ways of evading British Border Forces and smuggling themselves back into their homeland.

First up was husband and wife duo David and Carolynne, who would travel from Caen in France to Portsmouth on the south coast of England. Their chosen mode of transport was their motorhome, which David would drive and Carolynne would hide in. She was determined to get caught and said she would sleep a lot easier if they found her, knowing the border force were doing their job.

They arrived at the border crossing in Caen to try to make it past the French authorities. But would they really care who was leaving their country? I don’t think I would.

They made it through fine. She was raging. Then, following a six-hour journey on a ferry that mainly consisted of David worrying about having to lie to the British authorities, they made it to Portsmouth. But they got through, again, without any searches.

Another successful attempt was by Asher, a sailing and powerboat instructor who had been given the challenge of crossing the channel in a dinghy, not unlike the hundreds of boats used to make the same journey every month by desperate asylum seekers.

Several cutters and patrol vehicles roam the waters Asher would be crossing and it would take him eight hours to travel from Cherbourg to Weymouth. He made it undetected but not after his boat almost sank due to some big waves about halfway across. He pointed out he’s an experienced sailor but still felt terrified out on the water. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have the feeling of desperation thrown into the mix. Indeed, we are told, an asylum seeker dies days later trying to attempt the same journey.

The other two volunteers we saw also made it across – one visible to the authorities but using his friend’s passport to travel from Amsterdam to Newcastle, and the other hiding behind the driver’s seat in a lorry crossing from Calais to Dover.

It made for interesting but excruciating viewing and left me with questions: why isn’t the border security at our ports and beaches as strict as it is in the airport? Why don’t they have heat scanners at these places? Why is it just Calais where you have to go through British security before crossing to Britain? Why aren’t we doing more to stop this, even if just for the simple sake of saving people’s lives?

The smugglers and the smuggled taking part in the Channel 4 show.