AN ASYLUM-SEEKER who was cleared of people smuggling after being forced to pilot a small boat across the Channel has accused British authorities of making him a “scapegoat.”

Last year, the Home Office arrested 54 people for “facilitating illegal entry” to this country across the English Channel, but 33 were later revealed to be asylum-seekers, according to official figures obtained by the BBC and published today. 

Eighteen were later prosecuted, among them Iranian asylum-seeker Fouad Kakaei, who was cleared of people smuggling in May after the Court of Appeal overturned his initial conviction. 

Mr Kakaei said that he had taken control of the boat after seeing that “everybody’s life was in danger,” adding that it was a “matter of life or death.”

He said he now realises that, “one way or the other, they wanted to find me guilty …. they wanted a scapegoat.”

Refugee support group Care4Calais said that it knew from its experience of working with asylum-seekers in northern France that smugglers do not “cross with their customers.” 

Group founder Clare Moseley gave expert testimony at Mr Kakaei’s trial, telling the court: “I personally know well at least three men who have taken the role of driver in order to get in a boat to cross to the Channel. 

“In every case, they were an ‘ordinary’ refugee with no motivation other than to get to the UK and claim asylum. However, none of them had any money to do this and so they felt that this was their only option.”

The Crown Prosecution Service has since published new guidance stating that refugees who steer dinghies will not be prosecuted. 

However, campaigners fear that asylum-seekers could still face unfair criminal proceedings if the government’s Nationality and Borders Bill, which seeks to impose tougher penalities on people smugglers, becomes law.