A British couple has told GB News of their "very distressing" ordeal after finding an armed migrant stowaway inside their car at the French border.
Kevin Latham and Sian Calow from Lancashire were interrogated for three hours by French Border Force and now face a £6,000 fine after unknowingly transporting the illegal migrant in their vehicle.
Recalling what happened, Latham told host Nigel Farage that there couldn't have been more than a "two-minute window" in which the six-foot migrant hid in a tiny space in the back of their car.
GB News
|A British couple are facing a £6,000 fine after unknowingly transporting an armed migrant through France
Latham explained: "We decided to stop off at Dunkirk, do a bit of sightseeing there and then into Calais, and we realised we were running a bit short of fuel, so we thought we'd better pick up some petrol. Pulled into this forecourt, nobody there. No cars there.
"We filled up, Sian went to pay, but unfortunately, I had to go too. We're talking about no more than a two-minute window, and we didn't think any more about it. I thought I'd locked the car, so I hold my hands up, I thought I'd locked it."
He continued: "So off we drive, we get to the harbour, we go through ticketing, through passport control, through British Border Force, and then the French Border Force pulls us over.
"They ask us to get out, take us to the back of the car. And they opened up the door, and there was our friend, six-foot of him crammed into the back of our four by four."
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|The armed migrant stowaway hid in the back of the couple's car whilst they were paying for petrol
Noting that the space was "no space for a normal human", Calow revealed that the couple were then interrogated by Border Force for three hours, despite being the victims of an armed stowaway.
Calow told GB News: "They removed the man from the back of the car, took him away, searched the car and searched him. And we were taken to the Border Force offices and interrogated for quite a long time, three hours in all. It was really very, very distressing."
Latham then added: "We were giving the information that they were asking of us, as if we were like victims, and we're saying this is the information that's important to help in their course to prevent all this. And then we find out, hold on, we're now the guilty party and we're faced with this ginormous fine.
"It was a week later when we got a letter from the Border Force notifying us of our liability under the Asylum and Immigration Act 1999. So we had to look all this up, we weren't aware of this legislation and the 12 checks we're supposed to carry out every time we stop in France."
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|The couple told GB News that they want to raise awareness to other British holidaymakers travelling through France
Thanking Nigel and GB News for giving their story a platform, Latham made clear that they want to raise awareness of this issue to other holidaymakers travelling through France.
Latham concluded: "There's enough notice about alcohol and tobacco and not bringing fresh meat and dairy products, but absolutely nothing about this. This is why we wanted to flag this up.
"We feel really terrible about it, and we've been really trying to flag it up with an awful lot of people. It's only thanks to you guys that we're getting this airplay to actually make people aware when they go abroad, they are liable. They've got to know about this legislation, otherwise they can get caught.
"So it's our frustration and anger with this system that's buried this legislation."