Just watched a UK border agency programme on SKY where, in Calais, the driver of a nobbys w&d saw that a seal was broken so he looked in but could not see anything but the huge machinery tryes he was transporting so driver calls border agency staff to check it out
Border agency staff find over 20 illegals hiding inside the stacks of tyres
Driver is fined 2 thousand quid !!! - WHY?
ROG:
Driver is fined 2 thousand quid !!! - WHY?
Good question, well asked.
Because they are thick as pig ■■■■,It’s not only the driver who gets the fine the company also get fined, even if the driver has writen proof of visual checks that he carried out on the return journey,
They take the ■■■■ in a big way, Whay happens to the taliban that they find in your trailer ? they get escorted to the port entrance, and let go to sneak onboard another truck destined for the uk,oh course the ukna are aware of this, but the will still scam drivers out of their hard earned
and they are doing very little in deporting all the illeagals who made it to our shores , no papers they get to stay what a zb joke they are !!!
ROG:
WHY?
Easy target. Maybe if the ferry Captain or Le Shuttle driver were fined for each illegal things would change!
Well maybe just having a seal on a point of entry to the vehicle, without a padlock as well, is regarded as not taking enough security precautions ? Just guessing at this but I was under the impression that vulnerable entry points have to be secured to a particular standard and just a seal isn’t good enough. 
Regards
Dave Penn;
Padlocks are frequently cut and discarded by the gangs that organise these things, I have also seen padlocks glued together after being broken open.
The driver was just an easy target in this case. But how is an offence committed seeing as the truck was still in France?
Sometimes a seal and tir cord are all a driver is given by the company , and in any case a padlock or buldog type lock on the back doors will do little , most trailer roofs are easy enough for them to get into a trl , A mate of mine was pulling a box trl with tail lift that partly covered the back doors when stowed, he discovered them once in the uk near to the delivery address, he reported to the pod, ukba where involved my mate was treated like a criminal the truck impounded he was also arrested and held for a short time, before being released , the load was contaminated so was rejected so had to be returned , and some moths later my mate was fined not 1000 per man but still got a fine, even though he had all the paper work that they recommend filled in showing date time places stopped and visual checks etc, and the fact that those found would end up staying in the UK as they had destroyed their id’s in transit , evidence of this was on the trl floor , they should get tough and give them a chance to say where they are from or risk being sent to a country different to their native country , or just ship them back to France.Holland Spain etc mainland europe is as safe as the uk, they have no rights to stay here end of
brados:
Padlocks are frequently cut and discarded by the gangs that organise these things, I have also seen padlocks glued together after being broken open.
The driver was just an easy target in this case. But how is an offence committed seeing as the truck was still in France?
Ukba have claimed that bit of France as blighty? The old system was that a driver could not be done until the truck rolled onto English soil , so to speak, so if you discovered them in your trl whilst on the ferry.just before it landing at dover, and you couldn’t get them off your truck, you didn’t move off the boat , until they where removed as the ferry crew would get the police or port security to remove and detain them , if you went into the port then you got fined and that was rife ay one point, willi betz got banned from p&o as they caught talibahn getting out of betz trailers on their cctv and getting into other trucks whilst the ferry was sailing
@tommy t & @brados, don’t get me wrong guy’s I’m not sticking up for illegals or UKBA because I think this whole system of fine’s for driver’s is completely out of order and completely destroys the myth of innocent until proven guilty 
I’m sure since it was introduced it has put many an OD or small company out of business with no redress to any kind of appeal or compensation system.
Regards
Dave Penn;
I didn’t see that episode,but from what ROG says, the driver did exactly the right thing.Get the ‘professionals’ involved.He goes into the load by himself to investigate further,and gets set upon by 20 people who may well be armed and/or dangerous.If he was involved,presumably the authorities would find evidence of a money trail.Or is it just easier to get £2k from someone who thought he was helping the authorities? Put a lock on,check the TIR cord,fair enough-but if you report any thing,you’re in the chair 
Might just be that the Border Guard muppets have taken on the wrong guy…Norbert Dentressangle…doubt we will ever find out the final outcome.
Does the law say that if an illegal is found in the truck and the driver has done all that is reasonably possible that the driver gets fined?
I wouldn’t pay a penny and go to prison for a few months.
Well only ever had talibahn stow away in the trl i was pulling once,fortunately they where discovered within seconds of climbing in through the back doors,whilst i was re fuelling at what was the elf nr pidou at Calais , there was 5 or 6 of them all male aged 20-30yrs , these are not real asylum seekers, and their staying here isn’t helping our economy infact it’s a drain on it , but the government which is so scared of being accused of being racist ,turns on it’s own people and cuts their benefits and services , and this politically correct nonsense that this country has adopted IMO only serves to prevent progress ,and is a contributory factor to racism, and the PC brigade abuse it regularly
I’ve had illegals in a trailer, the 1st were a family of 3 Vietnamese who had I imagine, paid someone a sum of money to be transported to UK.
These were found by the sniffer dog, while sat in a lane waiting to board ferry, trailer had cord and seal, cord had been cut and repaired, which was very hard to spot at 4 am on cold wet morning ! 3 ferries later I was allowed to carry on. This resulted in a “civil penalty” notice from UKBA to the sum of £600, which I successfully challenged. I might have a copy of the letter at home, I’ll post it if I can find it.
The Boss got fined a large sum, for not having a system of checks in place to prevent immigrants.
The second attempt was an immigrant in the roof spoiler on a Daf space cab.
French spotted and evicted him, no further action.
Next one was a poorly executed attempt to put people in, so it was obvious people were in the trailer.
At Calais as soon as I stopped in the heart beat mon shed, I pointed out to the French BA, that i thought I had illegals on board, and was escorted to one side to be checked. There were 2 other trucks waiting to be checked as well as me, and 1 more turned up a bit later.
French for once civil and helpful, and only cost about an hour.
In all some twenty + immigrants seized and removed. No further action.
If you pass the ticket booths, you are effectively in England.
Be aware, take all measures you can, fill out a security log sheet ( available from BA website and RHA), most of all stay safe,
do not confront them,
allow the FRENCH to deal with them.
Personally I check for myself before going into the port area, any problems go straight to th French. . . .
TOMMY T hit the nail right on the head,its all about revenue for the government,they do not care about illegals entering this country,they have allready proved that,they are more interested in what they can screw out of lorry drivers and haulage companies,they should change the border agencies name to the harry enfield agency at least they could then shout LOADSAMONEY
Moral of the story…stick a pipe from exhaust into trailer and leave running all night then drag them out in the morning and go about your business 
I asked our governor about not being provided straps for certain loads and the company saying this is ok, if we get fined would the company pay. The answer I got was fines are a drivers responsibility.
The job is ■■■■■■. Most over regulated profession going. All we can ask is when they bend us over is they use a plentiful amount of KY
truckman20:
TOMMY T hit the nail right on the head,its all about revenue for the government,they do not care about illegals entering this country,they have allready proved that,they are more interested in what they can screw out of lorry drivers and haulage companies,they should change the border agencies name to the harry enfield agency at least they could then shout LOADSAMONEY
Alternatively, it’s all about drivers pocketing £2grand for turning a blind eye to a few passengers not on the manifest, then cynically crying wolf when they find out there’s actually someone manning the checkpoint this time !
The border agency tv programme showed clearly that these talibahn where being discovered at Calais port before the ticket booths in the heartbeat sheds, the ukba took over from the French some time ago, not sure if that is still ukba running it or the French, these talibahn again where mostly males ,from Iraq and Afghanistan and other non european locations, they where all photographed and fingerprinted,and then handed over to the french police,who took them from the port,only to release them yards from the entrance to the port,So the ukba would probably be on first name terms with some of them, but still attempted to screw the driver and company regardless , why wasn’t all this money invested into putting a stop to the problem ?, as said it’s a good earner for government
Thing is if you discover them en route to the port or ET who do you ring the French police the gendarmes? who? the French plod would probably take ages to turn out if they could be bothered ,
Amazing. 19,000 a year caught = about 50 a day. How many don’t get caught?
Then some of those they catch up with already here, give 'em £500 to go home