By Grâçia Ada Obi
A hero lorry driver who caught two people trying to sneak into Britain illegally in the back of his vehicle has been fined £12,000 after Border Force officials said he should have checked his truck more carefully.
Michael Fletcher, 63, from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, says he is facing debt collectors and claims he is being penalised by Border Force despite doing the right thing and alerting them.
Mr Fletcher, who has worked in transportation since the 1970s, was about to board a ferry at Calais on September 16 last year when he felt his vehicle move. He alerted border guards of his suspicions and after a check they found two stowaways in the back of his lorry.
He says he was advised by officers that he had done all the necessary checks but was shocked to receive a letter from Border Force in February demanding £12,000.
It claimed he was unable to produce a checklist at the time, but despite disputing this and providing a photograph of it, Border Force is now seeking a payment for a reduced fine of £3,000.
Mr Fletcher said he is stressed by the situation, has had to change jobs and now only works in transportation within the UK
‘I refuse to pay for a fine when I’ve done nothing wrong,’ he said.
Mr Fletcher said he had passed the security checks at the UK Immigration Control Zone in Calais and was about to board the ferry when he felt a suspicious movement in the back of his lorry.
He said: ‘The two vehicles in front of me started their engines and I then felt my lorry move which was strange as it was a sunny day and there was no wind.
‘I did all the checks. I walked around to the front and I thought the only place now is up on the roof, and that’s four metres high.
‘So I climbed up between the lorry cab and I managed to get my hands on top and pull myself up, and I looked over and I could see where they had cut the roof and somebody had sealed it back with tape.
‘So I got down and I shouted to the French border guards and they came back with the dog. I told them I thought I had somebody on board. Then about 30 minutes later the English Border Force came.’
He said staff checked his documents, finding them to be in order, but then found two people inside the lorry.
The night before, he had parked his lorry in the registered truck stop at Calais – which the government recommended drivers should use. An officer told him they had found several stowaways in vehicles that had come from that site recently.
Mr Fletcher, who was returning to the UK via France with a delivery of iced coffee from a factory in Germany, does not understand how security checks failed to detect the stowaways.
He raised the whole issue with his then MP, Mark Harper, who took it to then Home Secretary James Cleverly, who was in the process of looking into it.
But this stalled after Parliament was dissolved and Mr Harper lost his seat in the General Election. Mr Fletcher has since been unable to get the new Forest of Dean MP, Matt Bishop, to look into his case, but has been aided by county councillor Philip Robinson.
Mr Fletcher said: ‘I just want my issue resolved. I’m now waiting for bailiffs to come take the value of the fine.
‘I don’t understand how they can fine me when they haven’t taken me to court.
‘The first letter they sent to me was how to pay the fine and nobody wants to talk to me because I’m not that important.’
The last Conservative government tightened the law on penalties faced by drivers who are boarded by anyone trying to enter the UK.
Increased fines, new maximum penalty levels and a new penalty for failing to adequately secure a goods vehicle came into force to prevent dangerous and illegal journeys to Britain.
The Clandestine Entrant Civil Penalty Scheme is designed to target negligence rather than criminality.
