A Carlisle jury is being asked to decide whether a man illegally steered a small boat containing 50 fellow migrants as it travelled to the UK.
The packed inflatable craft was seen crossing the English Channel at around 11am on Saturday, November 16 2024.
It was kept under observation and filmed from the air before being intercepted in the Dover area by Border Force officials. Particular attention was trained on the man steering the boat.
After the interception, all migrants on board were photographed and processed.
One man, 22-year-old Sudanese national Noder Osman Adam, was logged as migrant 36. He was then transported more than 600 miles from Kent to Aberdeen, where he was housed.
Video footage was examined with a view to establishing the pilot’s identity. And it is alleged that Adam was the man with his hand regularly on the tiller during the unlawful journey.
A Carlisle Crown Court jury heard it was accepted that Adam entered the UK unlawfully on a small boat. But he denies a charge of assisting unlawful immigration to the UK by piloting the craft, and has gone on trial.
Opening the case today, prosecutor Tim Evans said particular observations had been kept on the boat’s pilot, with distinct bodily features and clothing noted.
Lengthy video clips captured the man with his right hand on the tiller. “He is also operating the throttle and clearly in control of the vessel,” said Mr Evans.
At one point the pilot looked directly up at the camera. He then appears to be on the phone, and is also seen to remove a beige hooded top before putting on a life jacket.
That was “significant”, said Mr Evans, as there was a black T-shirt underneath bearing a logo. “The logo is the Batman wings that you are familiar with from the film and, indeed, the word ‘Batman’,” the prosecutor told jurors.
A photograph of migrant 36 taken after the intercept by the Border Force showed his clothing. “The same clothes as the person piloting the boat,” alleged the prosecutor.
Adam’s phone was seized and analysed. One photograph showed him allegedly wearing the beige hoodie. Two videos “plainly taken from the back of a packed migrant boat” were said to match camera footage shot by Border Force officials of the same boat journey.
A message in Arabic on Adam’s phone was translated and read: “As soon as I saw the emergency I switched off the engine and hidden like the rest.”
Mr Evans alleged: “This is this defendant on his own phone admitting he is in control of the engine of the boat — precisely what the Crown say.
Trial judge, Recorder Anna Vigars KC, had earlier said to jurors that the issue of illegal entry into the UK might provoke strong feelings. “This case is not about how you feel. It is about what the evidence can or cannot prove to you,” said the judge.
“Please would you consciously and deliberately put those strong feelings to one side — box them off for the course of the trial.”
The trial continues.
- The case is being heard in Carlisle as it is the closest English court to Scotland, where the defendant was arrested for a second time.
