Former judo champ offered £2,000 for trying to smuggle 18 illegal immigrants from Albania into the UK is locked up after they were caught in a sinking dinghy off the Kent coast
Mark Stribling and Robert Stilwell were ferrying the immigrants across the Channel when they had to be rescued
TWO Brits caught trying to smuggle 18 migrants in this sinking dinghy were jailed for more than four years each yesterday.
Their terrified passengers avoided death “by a whisker” in one of a string of perilous Channel crossings exposed by a Sun investigation.
Ex-Great Britain judo champion Robert Stilwell, 33, and Mark Stribling, 35, were arrested after trying to bring the Albanians from France to Dymchurch in Kent in May.
They were rescued by lifeboats a mile and a half off the English shore after the rigid inflatable ran out of fuel and took on water.
None had lifejackets apart from Stilwell and Stribling.
The migrants were picked up near Calais.
But Stilwell and Stribling had little seafaring experience.
Judge Jeremy Carey told them: “Those who were rescued should be grateful as you should be to those who came to your aid.
“A tragedy was avoided by a whisker.”
He said the Albanians would have paid £108,000 in total and did not accept the pair’s claims they were boatmen hired for £2,000.
They admitted conspiring to assist unlawful immigration.
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Market worker Stilwell, of Greenhithe, Kent, has convictions including theft.
He got four years and four months.
Builder Stribling, of Farningham, Kent, has previous including robbery and got four years,eight months at Maidstone crown court.
Five of the 18 claimed asylum. The others were removed from the UK.
The Sun uncovered evidence of other vessels being launched from Dymchurch, with gangs charging £140,000 per boat.
ANOTHER SMUGGLER CAUGHT IN SECOND IMMIGRANT BOATING CASE
A British yachtsman caught smuggling 17 Albanians into an exclusive marina was today also sentenced to four years and nine months years in jail.
Stephen Jackson, 51, who also faces extradition proceedings over the disappearance of an expat in Spain, was caught as he tried to smuggle the men into the UK after crossing from France.
The Albanians on board had paid up to £7,000 for the eight hour passage from Cherbourg in Chichester.
But Jackson, a former professional cyclist who was skippering the 10 metre long catamaran, was caught after police and border officials swooped on him as he docked in the harbour.
He told police had had been in financial hardship. Acting under pressure, he had been offered the catamaran as payment for transporting a family of four.
But he told them that when he arrived at the boat he discovered 17 men on board. Despite this, he felt his safety would be at risk if he did not sail.
— BRIT sailor Stephen Jackson, 51, was jailed for four years and nine months at Lewes crown court yesterday after admitting smuggling 17 Albanian men into Chichester marina in West Sussex.
He was also wanted in connection with a murder in Spain.
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