Teen who piloted ‘mega dinghy’ across English Channel with 165 migrants onboard jailed

A teenager who piloted a boat with a then-record 165 migrants across the English Channel has been jailed for two years and three months.

Chan Atak, 19, from South Sudan, was sentenced at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday.

The overcrowded craft, which has been referred to as a “mega dinghy”, made the journey on 23 July.

At the time, the dinghy set a record for the largest number of migrants to reach the UK on a single boat. That record has since been broken, with 230 migrants recorded on board a boat in August.

Thirty-one children were among the people on board Atak’s vessel – the youngest aged just 14.

Atak was jailed for endangering others during a Channel crossing.

The boat itself was estimated to measure approximately 13 metres (42ft) in length, comparable to a standard bus.

The dinghy had two outboard engines but one was not functioning, while tubing on the boat had started to deflate, the court heard.

Aerial footage showed one person “constantly pumping” to try to re-inflate the rigid-hulled inflatable boat.

Atak was also picked up on aerial footage operating the boat for 90 minutes wearing a black jacket with an “Italia” logo.

However, he then crouched down among other passengers and took off his jacket “to avoid detection as the helmsman”, prosecutor James Harrison said.

Atak pleaded guilty to the single offence in August at the same court.

The teenager, aided by an Arabic interpreter, wore a t-shirt and a large white rosary around his neck at the hearing on Friday.

When the boat was intercepted, refugee charity Care4Calais warned that the Channel crossing route is becoming "more and more dangerous" due to the escalating number of people packed onto each vessel.

Sydney Sopher, chief operations officer, said: “The UK and French governments have spent years focusing on border security and enforcement, yet all they’ve achieved is to make Channel crossings more and more dangerous.

“The data shows that the average number of people crossing on single boats has been increasing year on year, but it could all be stopped overnight by opening safe routes.”

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