Asylum seekers caught while crossing Channel did not break law, court finds

Judges labelled their prosecution ‘legal heresy’

The UK Court of Appeal has found that a group of asylum seekers who arrived in the UK during the Channel crossings earlier this year did not break the law, setting a precedent for a number of cases. In the court papers on Tuesday, judges dismissed the charges levelled against three men who were jailed for allegedly “assisting unlawful immigration”. These individuals were said to have steered dinghies involved in several small boat crossings as far back as June 2019 - each one of them will now be freed from prison. A fourth man who also appealed against his conviction is set to face a retrial; meanwhile, at least seven convictions and two other cases pending trial are still under consideration. While one was said to be treading water when picked up and another attempted to flag Border Force patrol, all of them declared their only reason for crossing was to seek asylum. [caption id="attachment_307795" align="alignnone" width="1024"]

Credit: Getty[/caption] While this is only a small number of cases still to go through the courts, the ruling which found that Home Office and Crown Prosecution Service officials crucially "misunderstood" the law makes a positive outcome in similar cases much more hopeful. Only five months ago it was announced that migrants crossing the Channel to seek asylum will no longer be prosecuted however, one of the main problems with prosecution, in this case, is that many of those involved were wrongly labelled "people smuggler" - a primary reason being that they were "observed" steering dinghies. Judges went on to describe the process of making asylum seekers believe they had no grounds for defence as “legal heresy” and suggested that authorities acted with a "flawed view" of the Immigration Act 1971. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has already stated that he believes there is "no safe way" for people fleeing their country to reach the UK and that more needs to be done by the government to ensure to save people from war, poverty and death. Not sending them to prison might be a good start.