Court judgment deals blow to Priti Patel’s attempts to label asylum seekers ‘people smugglers’

Judges say asylum seekers who were jailed for steering dinghies had not committed a crime – but the government wants to make prosecutions easier, Lizzie Dearden writes

Priti Patel has vowed to crush people smuggling gangs, but the efforts have resulted in asylum seekers jailed for steering dinghies (PA)

The Home Office’s intensifying efforts to criminalise migrant boat crossings across the English Channel has hit a stumbling block after judges found men it labelled “people smugglers” had not committed a crime.

Judges quashed the convictions of three asylum seekers who had been wrongly jailed for “assisting unlawful immigration” by steering dinghies, and the ruling is expected to cause other verdicts to be overturned.

Priti Patel and other ministers have repeatedly declared Channel crossings illegal, but the Court of Appeal judgement read: “As the law presently stands an asylum seeker who merely attempts to arrive at the frontiers of the United Kingdom in order to make a claim is not entering or attempting to enter the country unlawfully.

“Even though an asylum seeker has no valid passport or identity document or prior permission to enter the United Kingdom this does not make his arrival at the port a breach of an immigration law.”

Judges were so incensed by what they called a legal “heresy”, they demanded that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) explain “how it came about that the law was misunderstood when investigating, charging and prosecuting these cases”.

Evidence heard in court suggested the answer lay with the Home Office, which triggered a wave of prosecutions by using drones to film migrant boats and identify those steering in 2019.

The government has defended its approach by saying they are targeting people smugglers, despite official analysis finding that criminal gangs mainly operate in France and do not board dinghies themselves.

In a succession of press releases the Home Office labelled asylum seekers who had been jailed for steering dinghies “small boat people smugglers”, while omitting to mention that the convicts were asylum seekers themselves.

Three of the four men who challenged their convictions at the Court of Appeal had paid people smugglers in France for the crossings, while a fourth organised his own with a group of fellow asylum seekers he met in Calais. All denied being part of smuggling gangs.

As a defence lawyer for one of the men told Canterbury Crown Court: “He is not guilty, he is not a collaborator with the smugglers, he is just another passenger on that boat.”

The Independent has previously asked the Home Office what definition it uses for the term “people smuggler”, and why it deviates from the United Nations’ requirement of a “financial or other material benefit”.

In response to the question, a Home Office spokesperson said: “We make no apology for wanting to bring those involved in these deadly crossings to justice and will continue to pursue those who put profit before people’s lives.

“Our New Plan for Immigration includes proposals for maximum life sentences for those facilitating illegal entry, so these criminals receive a punishment that fits the crime.”

New laws would make it easier to prosecute migrants who steer dinghies, by making changes that would circumvent parts of Tuesday’s Court of Appeal judgment.