Two men jailed for Ramsgate migrant-smuggle bid

A judge said Bradley Turner and John Sheppard tried to profit from "the desperation of others"

Two men who admitted conspiring to smuggle four Iraqi migrants, including a pregnant woman and a young child, into Kent have been jailed.

Bradley Turner, 38, and John Sheppard, 67, were arrested after being found in a fishing boat off Ramsgate.

Judge Simon James said the pair had sought to profit from "the desperation of others".

At Canterbury Crown Court earlier, Turner and Sheppard were jailed for four-and-a-half years each.

Turner, of Canvey Island, Essex, and Sheppard, of Saffron Walden, Essex, previously admitted a charge of conspiring to facilitate a breach of immigration law.

The court was told the RNLI had received a distress call from the boat owned and skippered by Turner reporting engine failure about eight miles off Ramsgate on 9 August.

Turner, Sheppard and another man were found on the boat which was towed back to the Kent port, prosecutor John Livingston said.

Border Force officials were called to Ramsgate Harbour last August

Mr Livingston said it was later established a family of three - a man, a "heavily pregnant" woman and a six-year-old child - had left the boat before Border Force officers arrived.

Sheppard became "very aggressive" and was "threatening to throw the Border Force officers into the water", the prosecutor said.

When he was questioned Turner said he had not noticed "anything unusual" on the trip back to Ramsgate, but footage taken by one of the migrants showed him on the boat's deck while the mother and child slept in the wheelhouse.

Serious and exploitative offence

Mr Livingston said the boat was "thoroughly unseaworthy" for the crossing and "plainly putting everybody at risk".

Judge James said he accepted the two men were not "at the very top" of a criminal organisation but played a "significant role and were clearly trusted by those further up the chain".

He said the migrants had been seeking "a new life for themselves" but "the message needs to go out that trafficking people was a serious and exploitative offence".