A 19-year-old asylum seeker has been jailed for two years and three months after steering an overcrowded migrant boat across the English Channel, in the first year of a new law targeting those who pilot dangerous small boats.
Chan Mathok Atak, from South Sudan, admitted endangering others during the crossing from France. He was sentenced at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday.
Prosecutors said Atak steered the approximately 14-metre dinghy for at least 90 minutes on July 23. The vessel was carrying 165 people, including 31 children aged between 14 and 17.
They said he was believed to be one of two people who took turns piloting the boat. At the time, it carried the largest recorded number of people on a single small boat crossing the Channel, although a vessel carrying 230 people surpassed that figure in August.
Channel migrant boat had one working engine
The court heard that the dinghy had only one working engine and lacked navigation and first-aid equipment. It was also deflating and slowly taking on water before being intercepted by UK Border Force.
There was no evidence presented that Atak had organised the crossing. But Judge Sarah Counsell said the offence was sufficiently serious that “only an immediate custodial sentence can be justified”.
She also warned Atak that he could face automatic deportation after completing his sentence.
Atak’s lawyer, Audrey Mogan, said there was “not a single shred of evidence” connecting her client with the overcrowding or the absence of safety equipment. She described him as a young asylum seeker who had fled violence in South Sudan.
The law, introduced in January, is aimed at people who steer boats in a way that puts passengers’ lives at risk. It is separate from older offences, including assisting unlawful immigration.
The first convictions under the legislation came in June, when an Afghan national and a Sudanese national were each jailed for at least two years over similar offences.
Home Office Minister Anna Turley said in July: “If you risk the lives of others by bringing illegal migrants to British shores on dangerous small boats, you will face justice.”
