Can anyone give some advice for a really good friend of mine.
He is british and lives in spain doing fridge work for a spanish outfit, he had clandestines in his truck and had to make a statement to border force.
He had done all he could including making up a separate lock to try and keep them out.
He has now been served with a fine of £4400 .
What ■■■■■■ me is that these low lifes who broke and entered his trailer and tried to enter another country illegally get nothing whatsoever.
Has anyone on here had the same experience and if so how did you handle it.
Thanks.
tuktukmike:
Can anyone give some advice for a really good friend of mine.
He is british and lives in spain doing fridge work for a spanish outfit, he had clandestines in his truck and had to make a statement to border force.
He had done all he could including making up a separate lock to try and keep them out.
He has now been served with a fine of £4400 .
What ■■■■■■ me is that these low lifes who broke and entered his trailer and tried to enter another country illegally get nothing whatsoever.
Has anyone on here had the same experience and if so how did you handle it.
Thanks.
Where I work we have had clandestines found a few times in the past. So far, no fines. Border Force seem content that the security measures we take are up to what they expect.
I am passing no judgment, but imagine they felt your mate could/should have done more? Did they say at all what extra precautions they expected?
Fines can be appealed against. Best to take legal advice on that of course.
Fines can be £2,000 per clandestine found for both driver and haulier, so £4k per head total.
It aint easy to prove youve done all you can if they are actually found on board.
Not a good situation, sorry I can`t give better advice other than talk to a lawyer.
no point in appealing except at the most basic level as you wont get legal aid and the government will just stall and stall till you give up or run out of money.
if your the driver and lose your job and can qualify for legal aid then itl cost 3-4 k just to get a date at the high court without doing anything else and even if there was the slightest chance of you winning and setting the rules for future cases then they will just drop the case so theres no more dosh and you wont have the funds to conclude the outcome.
after that,you might as well buy a bigger table for to sitthem at when your eating your tea as there will be a gov official from every department imaginable crawling up your jacksie for the rest of your life to teach you not to mess,so you might as well just sit an extra place for him at the table.
pay up and put it behind you unless somehow they change their mind at the start.
Ok so got an update from my mate who has got this fine, first he has to lodge an appeal but its county court not high court.
Will update as it goes along.
Where I used to work we had a check list for clandestine searches , this included locks , seals and security cords for curtainsiders , it also included a record of phone calls of confirmation of searches and checks and a policy of an exclusion zone around ports of 100kms no stopping .
This was all Border Force approved .
We had several instances of illegal stowaways mostly discovered before the ports and a couple discovered by border control only one driver received a fine , he was the only one who couldn’t prove he had done the approved checks .
We had confronted illegals as far away as Patras in Greece and others found them in Spain and Portugal as well as France.
If you are in a union contact them for legal help , some houshold policies have a legal cover that may also help .
If you had a check system in place with records it certainly seems to help when dealing with Border Force
We even had bag issued for every trip that contained locks , seals , curtain repair equipment and a torch , all the seals had serial numbers that were recorded when and where they were used .
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grumpyken52:
Where I used to work we had a check list for clandestine searches , this included locks , seals and security cords for curtainsiders , it also included a record of phone calls of confirmation of searches and checks and a policy of an exclusion zone around ports of 100kms no stopping .
This was all Border Force approved .
We had several instances of illegal stowaways mostly discovered before the ports and a couple discovered by border control only one driver received a fine , he was the only one who couldn’t prove he had done the approved checks .
We had confronted illegals as far away as Patras in Greece and others found them in Spain and Portugal as well as France.
If you are in a union contact them for legal help , some houshold policies have a legal cover that may also help .
If you had a check system in place with records it certainly seems to help when dealing with Border Force
We even had bag issued for every trip that contained locks , seals , curtain repair equipment and a torch , all the seals had serial numbers that were recorded when and where they were used .
Clandestines have been an issue for over 20 years now.
This system, or something similar, has been the system approved by Border Force (HM Customs and Excise before them) since the problems started.
If you don’t do something similar, with anti-clandestine checks noted in writing, you’re going to have problems with Border Force anyway.
If you get caught with clandestines as well, you’re in the [zb] over your head and sinking fast. I think the max fine increased to £3,000 a head by the way, so 2k is a reduced fine.
Sometimes there’s a fine, sometimes they’ll let you go. Just because they let you go once doesn’t mean they’ll let you go another time.
I don’t have check lists, but I do keep a diary. On the return Leg, every time I stop I make a note that I’ve done a check.
At the ports I use coming home, the Dutch Police do an eyeball check of my load before boarding the ferry and mark my boarding pass.
So I have my own checks noted, plus an eyeball check by someone ‘in authority’ to show I’m clear.
If I think I’ve got stowaways, I’ll still carry on to the port, but inform them at check-in.
I’ve had stowaways at Calais, many years ago before HMCE were checking passports at the port. I passed the scanner check, I passed the CO2 check, but insisted on a Mk1 eyeball check of my load. There were 7 in there. Vanned away and nothing more for me to worry about, that day.