An asylum seeker found guilty of manslaughter after four migrants on board his “unseaworthy” boat drowned will be detained for nine years and six months.
During a trial at Canterbury Crown Court, Ibrahima Bah said smugglers threatened to kill him if he did not pilot the boat, which set off on 14 December 2022.
But the prosecution said he was not telling the truth and argued he owed his fellow passengers a “duty of care” as their pilot.
Campaigners are expected to protest the conviction at the Home Office on Friday evening, arguing it represents a “violent escalation in the persecution of migrants to ‘Stop the Boats'”.
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Sentencing Bah on Friday, Mr Justice Johnson KC, said: “The boat was wholly inadequate, and not remotely seaworthy for a Channel crossing.
“It was a death trap, just as every boat of its type which sets off across the Channel in similar circumstances is a death trap – the fact that in many cases fatalities do not occur is not remotely reassuring.
“What happened is an utter tragedy for those who died and for their families.”
Jurors were told the homemade, low-quality inflatable had a capacity of 20 people, but Bah, from Senegal, tried to carry at least 43 people across the English Channel that night.
When the boat got into trouble, a number of migrants inside the boat described water reaching their knees within 30 minutes of leaving the French coast, the court heard.
A total of 39 survivors were brought to shore, while the exact number of migrants who drowned is unknown as the prosecution said at least one migrant’s body may not have been recovered.
Bah was found guilty of four counts of manslaughter by jurors by a majority verdict of 10 to two in what is believed to be the first conviction of its kind.
Bah, who is over 18, was also found unanimously guilty of facilitating illegal entry to the UK.
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