The teenager was jailed after piloting a boat carrying 165 people across the Channel.
UChan Atak, 19, was jailed for two years and three months at Canterbury Crown Court (Image: National Crime Agency/PA Wire)
A teenage asylum seeker who piloted an overcrowded, deflating 14-metre-long dinghy across the English Channel with 165 people on board has been jailed. This was a record high number of passengers on a boat for a Channel crossing when the craft made the journey carrying men, women and 31 children, the youngest aged 14, on July 23.
Chan Atak, 19, from South Sudan, was jailed for two years and three months’ at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday for endangering others during a Channel crossing, which in this case lasted nearly 24 hours. The dinghy had two outboard engines but one was not functioning, while tubing on the boat had started to deflate, the court heard. Aerial footage shows one person “constantly pumping” to try to re-inflate the rigid-hulled inflatable boat. Atak was also picked up on aerial footage operating the boat for 90 minutes wearing a black jacket with an “Italia” logo. But then Atak crouched down among other passengers and took off his jacket “to avoid detection as the helmsman”, prosecutor James Harrison said.
The boat piloted by Chan Atak was carrying more than 160 people during the Channel crossing (Image: National Crime Agency/PA Wire)
Sentencing him, Judge Sarah Counsell said Atak played an “important role” in controlling and navigating the vessel, and it was not “fleeting or incidental involvement”.
“Crossings of this nature are inherently dangerous,” she said.
“Small inflatable vessels of the type commonly used for these crossings are not designed for offshore sea voyages.
“Those who choose to steer such vessels assume responsibility for the safety of those on board.”
The judge also noted that as well as engine issues, the vessel did not have navigation, emergency signalling equipment or firefighting equipment while fuel containers and batteries were “stored together creating a risk of fire”.
But she added there was no evidence he organised the crossing or that he stood to make money from it.
Migrants being brought ashore at Dover Western Jet Foil (Image: National Crime Agency/PA Wire)
The court heard Atak had told police officers he paid 200 euros to a gang for the crossing.
Atak pleaded guilty to the single offence in August at the same court.
The teenager, aided by an Arabic interpreter, wore a t-shirt and a large white rosary around his neck at the hearing on Friday.
Defending him, barrister Audrey Mogan urged the court to take into account his young age, having turned 19 the month before the crossing took place.
Ms Mogan described Atak has someone who has “escaped the horrors of South Sudan”, where he saw militia set fire to a neighbourhood, people shot and their throats slashed.
He escaped from there to Libya, where the situation for young asylum seekers are “dire”, she said, and he was beaten and particularly focused on because of his Christianity.
A worn propeller on an outboard motor used on a boat piloted by Chan Atak (Image: National Crime Agency/PA Wire)
“It’s from there he escaped to Italy and then to France,” she said.
She told the judge: “He wants me to tell this to your honour, he came here to seek sanctuary and safety, that is of course what asylum seekers are doing, to build a new life and to leave the dire circumstances where they come from, seek protection.”
The court heard the sentence for Atak meant as a foreign national he was liable in principle to automatic deportation back to his country.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS STORY. MORE TO FOLLOW.