Illegal immigrant walks through Channel Tunnel

[John Ashworth]

Illegal migrant gives up on plan to enter UK (while in Channel Tunnel) because it is 'racist' and 'uncivilised'

By Peter Allen
Last updated at 1:07 PM on 18th March 2010
Daily Mail

An illegal immigrant walking through the Channel Tunnel came within seven miles of Dover before giving up after deciding he didn't want to live in 'racist' Britain.

He then waited for security guards to arrest him.

Amer Hassan, 23, had walked for 16 miles from France before abandoning his journey and told police he wanted to live in a 'civilised country'.

The Egyptian had been thrown out of Britain at least once before for falsely claiming asylum but planned to return.

He told police: ‘I don’t want to go to England anymore.

‘They’re racist over there and always think I’m transporting a bomb.’

He was taken back to France where he was sentenced to two years in prison and told he would be deported on being released.

Appearing before a judge at Boulogne Correctional Court yesterday, Hassan told how he stopped walking towards Dover and waited for security guards to arrest him.

He told the judge: ‘I’ll live as I want to live, which doesn’t mean spending time in England.

‘I’m finished with that country.’

He was jailed after being found guilty of being in France illegally and trespass.

Hassan is believed to have travelled from Egypt through Libya, and then across the Mediterranean on a small boat before entering France.

He was stopped on a number of occasions in the country, with fingerprint checks painting a picture of where he had been.

Prosecutors said his plan was always to get back to England through northern France, which has become a magnet for UK-bound illegal migrants.

Security cameras inside the Channel Tunnel picked him by the side of a line used by Eurostar trains travelling towards Britain at speeds of up to 100mph.

‘I walked from around 10.45pm until 8am. I saw trains rushing by every ten minutes,' Hassan told the court.

‘Each time I hung on to the metal bar which is at the side of the walkway, which are no more than a metre wide.

‘I ended up feeling fed up. I was tired and that’s when the police turned up.’

Daniel Fasquelle, defending, told the court: ‘My client is in the same position as hundreds of migrants.

‘He is above all a lost man who was physically lost in the tunnel.

‘On the fatal day in question, he was disenchanted, tired by life, and only his religious beliefs held him together.

‘Is Eurotunnel doing everything it can to stop these intrusions into the tunnel?’

A spokesman for France Manche, which represents the Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel, said: ‘This man perhaps didn’t want to cause too much trouble but the harm was nonetheless extensive.

‘There were 39 trains which were disrupted. The problem is a recurrent one as far as migrants are concerned.

‘The problems as regards security are enormous. The trains travel through at 140km an hour.

‘He could have been killed and the security of the passengers could also have been put at risk.’

Eurotunnel successfully claimed the equivalent of some £40,000 in damages and interest but it was not made clear how Hassan would be able to pay it.