Men jailed for bid to smuggle Albanian migrants in inflatable boat from France

A still image taken from footage of migrants on board the white rigid inflatable boat on May 28
Home Office/PA Wire
Hatty Collier29 July 2016
WEST END FINAL

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Two men were jailed today for trying to smuggle 18 Albanian immigrants into the UK before their boat broke down.

Mark Stribling, 35, and Robert Stilwell, 33, illegally attempted to help the migrants on a boat from France which had to be rescued in the English Channel.

Stilwell, a former European and Commonwealth judo champion, and Stribling were to be paid £2,000 each to make the journey to the south of Calais and transport the migrants, who had paid £6,000 each for the crossing, Maidstone Crown Court heard.

The migrants - 15 men, one woman and two children - had waded into the water before climbing on board the white rigid inflatable boat (rib) on the evening of May 28 this year.

Mark Stribling and Robert Stilwell on board the boat, which drifted for three hours in the sea
Home Office/PA Wire

They had to be rescued by the Coastguard and the crew of HMC Valiant after the boat lost power after they set off France and drifted for almost three hours taking in water.

A video from the search and rescue helicopter played to the court showed a migrant using a small container to try to bail out the boat, while Stribling could be seen remonstrating with other migrants.

When lifeboat crews arrived, the woman migrant was "showing signs of hypothermia", prosecutor Nina Ellin said.

Jailed: Robert Stilwell (left) and Mark Stribling
Home Office/PA Wire

It took four return trips to the HMC Valiant, a Border Force cutter ship, to remove all the migrants and the defendants from the rib, taking a total of an hour and a half.

Ms Ellin said rescuers overheard one of the defendants - the only English speakers on board - claim they had been fishing and had rescued the migrants, while the other was said to have shouted that the boat had run out of fuel as they did so.

Once the pair arrived back at Dover, they appeared in "good spirits" and joked about the strength of the tea and coffee.

Stribling, of Hilltop Farm, Farningham, near Swanley in Kent, was jailed for four years and eight months and Stilwell, of Stanley Close, Greenhithe, was sentenced to four years and four months in prison. Both had pleaded guilty to immigration law.

Stilwell appeared stunned by the sentence and mouthed "Tell them I love them" as he was sent down, while Stribling smirked.

In sentencing, Judge Jeremy Carey said the event was fuelled by the defendants’ “greed, recklessness and deceit and the desire to get easy money”.

He added: "A tragedy was averted by a whisker."

Additional reporting by Press Association.

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