I had a similar problem with an illegal immigrant about six years ago.
I did not realise he had got in through the rear doors of the PVC we had at the time, whilst I popped into Aldi (or was it Lidl ?) at Cite Europe to get some bread for our lunch whilst going back home through the Tunnel. I was away for less than 10 mins and my wife was sat in the front passenger seat but did not hear the rear doors being opened.
Our experience was a bit more troublesome than yours chaser. We did not know he was there until we were pulled over by UK Border Force before getting on the train. I think they knew he was already there (possibly picked up on CCTV which seems to be everywhere in that area) because the first thing they asked me was to open the rear doors. You can imagine my surprise and shock! My wife and I were immediately arrested and the intruder was taken away for interview. Both my wife and I were detained separately and interrogated. They soon accepted that we were a pair of elderly innocents who were naive about such matters, and we were given a cup of tea and formally “de-arrested”. We were able to proceed to board a train about an hour later than booked.
I did write up the experience shortly afterwards and posted it on MHFun (but I cannot find it now) as a warning to others to be more careful than we had been.
After this experience, for the next 3 years every time we arrived back into the UK we were pulled over by UK Border Force for a full search of our Motorhome. Even though in this time we changed our van, we were still searched. I presume that a “flag” had been added to my computer record they hold because after machine-reading of my Passport we were asked to pull over to a search area!
We were warned by Border Force when after we were released in France to thoroughly clean everywhere the immigrant had been because many of them had scabies.
I did not realise he had got in through the rear doors of the PVC we had at the time, whilst I popped into Aldi (or was it Lidl ?) at Cite Europe to get some bread for our lunch whilst going back home through the Tunnel. I was away for less than 10 mins and my wife was sat in the front passenger seat but did not hear the rear doors being opened.
Our experience was a bit more troublesome than yours chaser. We did not know he was there until we were pulled over by UK Border Force before getting on the train. I think they knew he was already there (possibly picked up on CCTV which seems to be everywhere in that area) because the first thing they asked me was to open the rear doors. You can imagine my surprise and shock! My wife and I were immediately arrested and the intruder was taken away for interview. Both my wife and I were detained separately and interrogated. They soon accepted that we were a pair of elderly innocents who were naive about such matters, and we were given a cup of tea and formally “de-arrested”. We were able to proceed to board a train about an hour later than booked.
I did write up the experience shortly afterwards and posted it on MHFun (but I cannot find it now) as a warning to others to be more careful than we had been.
After this experience, for the next 3 years every time we arrived back into the UK we were pulled over by UK Border Force for a full search of our Motorhome. Even though in this time we changed our van, we were still searched. I presume that a “flag” had been added to my computer record they hold because after machine-reading of my Passport we were asked to pull over to a search area!
We were warned by Border Force when after we were released in France to thoroughly clean everywhere the immigrant had been because many of them had scabies.
