Shocking moment suspected migrant found hiding in roof box of car at Kent service station
THIS is the shocking moment a suspected migrant is found hiding in the roof box of a car.
Viral footage shows the moment an officer reveals the man, who had been curled up inside the tiny roof box, at Maidstone Services off the M20 in Kent on the morning of September 7.
It’s unclear how far the suspected migrant travelled in the cramped conditions – but if he had come from Calais it would have been a journey of around 70 miles.
Elliot Lloyd Brake, 27 from Essex, who filmed the footage said witnesses were “bewildered” by the scenes.
Speaking to The Sun Online he said: “I was at the services getting breakfast [when] the driver came out of the service station with the police, [who] approached the vehicle.”
Footage shows an officer wearing purple gloves prise open the box to reveal a young-looking man who has been curled up inside.
Elliot, filming, says: “There he is ladies and gentlemen,” as the man, dressed in jeans and a dark hoodie, emerges and hands the officer a large bottle of water.
Elliot said both the man and the driver were very calm, adding: “He wasn’t trying to fight or escape, he came out calmly with the help of the officers.”
He said: “They put him in a squad car along with the driver.”
Kent Police told The Sun Online the man has been detained and is being questioned by the Home Office immigration officers.
But Elliot, who works as a HGV mechanic said he wasn’t surprised by the scenes as it’s not the first time he’s spotted a stowaway.
The UK’s worrying migrant crisis sees countless desperate people entering Britain in dangerous and inhumane ways.
Cruel gangs charge the desperate people – often fleeing in search of a better life – grotesque amounts of money to transport them into the UK in unsafe, and often unsanitary ways.
Many cross the channel in flimsy boats, with some 5,025 migrants thought to have have arrived in small boats so far this year – including a single-month record of 1,468 in August.
And more than 6,000 migrants have made the desperate journey across the Channel so far in 2020.
It comes less than a year after the horrific deaths of 39 migrants in Essex.
The bodies of the Vietnamese nationals were discovered on an industrial estate in Grays, Essex, shortly after the container arrived in Purfleet on a ferry in the early hours of October 23 last year.
Among the men, women and children were 10 teenagers, two of them 15-year-old boys.
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An inquest heard their medical cause of death was asphyxia and hyperthermia – a lack of oxygen and overheating – in an enclosed space.
And today, a scathing report was released slamming the Home Office who are “‘clueless about how many illegal migrants are living in the UK”.
The Commons Public Accounts Committee said the department also has no idea how many people come here legally but do not renew visas.