French people smugglers

The Sun 13/01/2010

A FRENCH politician faces up to 14 years in jail after she admitted smuggling 16 Vietnamese migrants into Britain in the back of a van.

Christiane Chocat, 51, was arrested along with her 20-year-old son Benjamin after arriving in the UK on a ferry from the Cherbourg.

UK Border Agency officers were alerted when they spotted condensation on the window of the van.

They then found 13 men and three women crouching inside a 5ft long and 3ft high, purpose-built wooden box hidden behind cases of shrimp noodles.

Chocat's arrest baffled residents in the town of Lumigny-Nesles-Ormeaux, near Paris, where she is a councillor and has been described as 'a pillar of the local community'.

But today at Portsmouth Crown Court she admitted smuggling the illegal immigrants into the continental ferry port at Portsmouth, Hants, on October 1 2009.

Her son had admitted the same charge at an earlier hearing.

Prosecutor Martyn Booth told the hearing: "We do not seek to go behind the suggestion that her son was the main player in this enterprise.

"Nor do we seek to challenge the fact that she became involved out of some misguided desire to be supportive to her son.

"But we don't accept that her knowledge was limited and it is clear that she did play some part in the hiring of the vehicle and the purchase of the transport.

"We cannot comment on whether or not she would have received any financial reward but we do accept that she was the secondary of these individuals."

Judge Roger Hetherington today remanded her in custody until February 5 when they will both be sentenced. The maximum sentence for the offence is 14 years imprisonment.

The case will prove an embarrassment to the French authorities, who claim to be battling to halt the tide of illegal migrants trying to get from their northern ports to the south coast of England.

The illegal immigrants were on the ferry Normandie Express, which was raided by officals from the UK Border Agency at around 7.30pm on October 1.

The illegal migrants, who were thought to have paid for their passage in cash, were sent back to France immediately

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