Eurotunnel Vietnamese migrants smuggling couple jailed

Four men, five women and three children were found hidden among the tyres

A couple have been jailed for trying to smuggle 12 Vietnamese migrants into the UK in a van loaded with tyres.

Katy Bethel and her then-partner Aaron Harris, both 28 and from Gillingham in Kent, were arrested on 4 July 2015 at Coquelles' Eurotunnel check-in.

Four men, five women and three children were found hidden among the tyres after an official spotted a pair of legs.

Harris was jailed for five years, and Bethel was sentenced to two years and nine months at Maidstone Crown Court.

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Katy Bethel (left) was a passenger in the vehicle driven by Aaron Harris

Harris pleaded guilty to a charge of assisting illegal immigration on 30 January at Canterbury Crown Court.

Bethel was found guilty of the same charge by a jury at Maidstone Crown Court on 8 August.

The mother-of-four, who was six months pregnant at the time, was a passenger in the van which was driven by Harris.

She had claimed she had no idea the migrants were in the vehicle.

A Border Force officer was alerted when he spotted a pair of legs sticking out of the tyres

During her trial, Bethel said she and Harris had gone on a day trip looking for a beach but had got lost and left the van by the roadside as they went for a walk.

The prosecution accused her of talking "nonsense".

In the four hours the pair were in France, they made and received 67 messages and calls to and from an unknown number, the jury were told.

Katy Bethel claimed she had no idea the migrants were in the van

Bethel said Harris, the father of two of her children, was using her phone and she was unaware of the contents of the calls and messages.

She wept in the dock as she was jailed by Judge Philip Statman.

Sentencing the pair, the judge said: "It goes without saying that assisting unlawful immigration into the UK is big business.

"This was in my judgment a sophisticated enterprise. I am clear there would have been others involved."