News

Operators are successfully defending stowaway fines after Home Office figures obtained by MT through the Freedom of Information Act show that the average penalty notice is well below the £4,000 maximum.

The most up-to-date figures show that during 2007/08, 2,085 penalty notices were served on hauliers and lorry drivers found transporting clandestine entrants into the UK. However, the revenue raised was £1.6m, which equates to an average fine of just £790. The Home Office can charge a maximum  of £4,000 per stowaway found: £2000 for the operator and £2,000 for the driver.

The figures were even worse in 2006/07, where an average £614 fine was raised for the 2,026 penalty notices issued. It has prompted the Road Haulage Association (RHA) to question why the government's system is such that hauliers can defend fines and have them reduced to around 80% of their original value.

Peter Cullum, the RHA's head of international affairs, says the figures suggest that security procedures, or rather the lack of them outside the Channel ports, are allowing hauliers to mount credible defences against Home Office fines. He is now calling for changes in the law to take account of haulier experiences in the real world.

Cullum says: "As credible defences are being mounted in most cases, it seems that the system itself could benefit from a review. "The system  causes a lot of stress to honest hauliers. We will be making proposals to the Home Office in the next couple of weeks," he adds.

Geoff Dossetter, external affairs director at the Freight Transport Association, says: "There are too many incidents of fines being levied on hauliers who are entirely innocent, so it's good to see that operators are successfully defending themselves.

"However, those that are purposefully smuggling people into the country do need to be served heavy fines or serve a prison sentence." The Home Office was unavailable at the time of writing.