Couple trapped Vietnamese migrants including kids in sofas to smuggle them to UK

16 September 2023 , 00:15

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The adapted sofas used to smuggle Vietnamese migrants into the UK (Image: Home Office / SWNS)

A couple have been jailed for trapping Vietnamese migrants including children inside specially adapted sofas to smuggle them into Britain.

Junior Toussaint and Andrene Paul, both from near Paris, were sentenced to nearly ten years combined at Hove Crown Court on Friday after pleading guilty to assisting unlawful migration to the UK. The pair had worked together as delivery drivers in France and used furniture to hide a Vietnamese woman and three children in the back of a hire van.

They had travelled from Dieppe to Newhaven Port in the early hours of 2 April this year. Border Force officers became suspicious when they searched the van and saw movement from inside the adapted sofas, which were buried underneath a mattress and other furniture.

Shocking images taken at the time of the search show two migrants packed inside with no means of escape without assistance from the smugglers. Others were hidden among other fixtures including a chest of drawers. One migrant was found crushed underneath a settee.

Andrene Paul (Home Office / SWNS)

Junior Toussaint (Home Office / SWNS)

At Hove Crown Court on Friday a judge sentenced them to a combined jail term of nine years and 11 months. Toussaint, 25, was given four years and six months in jail and Paul, 28, was locked up for five years and five months. The defendants told officers they had no knowledge of the migrants’ presence in their van and had been driving it to help with furniture removal in London.

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Fingerprint checks carried out by Border Force later proved Toussaint’s involvement in the smuggling attempt. He pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful immigration. Paul, who had also denied her involvement, was found to have made a series of suspicious visits to the UK earlier in the year. She pled guilty when video evidence of her previous activity was shown in court.

Speaking after the case, Chris Foster, Deputy Director of Criminal and Financial Investigations at the Home Office, said: "Criminals are going to increasingly extreme lengths to smuggle people across the UK border for profit due to our efforts to clamp down on them. This sentence today reflects the severity of their crimes.

“Our teams save lives by identifying and intervening in smuggling attempts like this one. I want to thank my officers who work tirelessly to investigate those responsible and ensure they face the full weight of the law.”

Tom Bevan