Eight years ago, Mohammed Tajik watched as members of the Taliban murdered his father and brother. Tajik’s father owned a restaurant, and the Taliban had demanded he poison visiting soldiers. He refused and was killed.
Soon after their deaths, Tajik made the difficult decision to leave his wife and child and flee Afghanistan, fearing he, too, would be killed if he stayed.
Alnour Ali was also fearing for his life when he fled Sudan in 2019. Ali’s village had just been destroyed in the war, which has seen ethnically targeted attacks, sexual violence and enforced disappearance of non-Arabs. While in Libya, Ali was twice imprisoned by militia and tortured.
After long and difficult journeys, both men made it to the UK and sought asylum. This month, I watched as they were handed prison sentences – two years for Tajik, two years and three months for Ali – after becoming the first people convicted of ‘endangering life at sea’, a cruel new offence that punishes the very people it claims to protect.
Seeking asylum has been criminalised
In June 2022, the Conservative government introduced the offence of ‘illegal arrival’ in its Nationality and Borders Act, after courts ruled that earlier prosecutions of asylum seekers had been unlawful. It quickly began prosecuting people who came to the UK on ‘small boats’ to seek asylum, a trend continued by Labour when it came into power in 2024.
Over 625 people have so far been convicted of the offence after crossing the Channel, with the vast majority pleading guilty. Their prosecutions ignore that Article 31 of the Refugee Convention states that refugees should be protected from penalisation for how they arrive in the UK.
Those found guilty generally receive prison sentences of less than 12 months, and authorities find it difficult to prosecute the ‘boat pilots’ for the more serious offence of ‘facilitation’ – also introduced in the Nationality and Borders Act – due to the lack of evidence that they were involved in organising journeys.
Looking to increase the prison sentences, Keir Starmer’s government introduced a new offence, ‘endangering lives at sea’, in its Border, Security, Asylum and Immigration Act, which came into force in January this year. Those found guilty may face up to five years in prison, or up to six years if they are also in breach of a deportation order.
The offence’s humanitarian veneer – targeting those who ‘endanger life’ – is thin and misleading.
Tajik and Ali were selected for prosecution after being identified as having steered the dinghies they arrived in across the Channel. This has been the case for around 300 of those convicted of ‘illegal arrival’.
According to research I conducted along with organisations supporting those imprisoned, most people were ‘at the tiller’ for one of three reasons: either they had limited financial resources and were offered a cheaper crossing in exchange for piloting a vessel, they had boating experience or took over to improve safety, or they were coerced and forced to steer.
While Tajik and Ali were the first people sentenced for the offence, they were not the first accused of it. A 16-year-old boy from Afghanistan was charged with endangering 46 lives at sea on 5 January; he has denied wrongdoing, telling a court that he was forced to pilot the boat. His case is ongoing.
In 2024, Senegalese teenager Ibrahima Bah was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence after four people drowned from the dinghy he was steering. Despite survivors calling him a ‘hero’ in their testimonies in court and describing how he saved their lives, he was sentenced to nine years and six months.
Just this week, a Syrian man was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after a woman died on a small boat attempting to reach the UK. An investigating source told the Daily Mail it is feared she was crushed.
These people are not the architects of dangerous crossings, but participants in a situation created by a lack of safe, legal routes to the UK and hardened by ever-increasing border enforcement.
Tajik paid for a place on an inflatable dinghy crossing the Channel in January. He had no involvement in organising the journey. When the original pilot became unable to steer mid-crossing, Tajik took over. He had no financial incentive for doing so – he simply wanted to keep the vessel moving safely.
The prosecution argued that the dinghy was overcrowded and lacked lifesaving equipment. They also said that Tajik had let go of the tiller handle when he caught sight of the rescue vessel, and that the boat drifted in circles. Many of these factors were beyond his control.
Tajik did not decide how many people would be in the boat. In fact, the average number of people in each boat has increased in line with rising British policing investments in mainland Europe, according to research from the University of Bristol and Border Forensics. French authorities seize more boats’ motors, meaning fewer dinghies can launch, and more people cram onto each vessel. Similarly, releasing the tiller on sight of the authorities may have been a rational response to knowing that steering can lead to imprisonment. Again, this is a risk created by the policy itself.
Ali was arrested after being identified as the pilot of a small boat in drone footage of a crossing that took place in April. Like Tajik, he was not involved in organising the journey. A now-deleted press release from the National Crime Agency wrongly linked Ali to the deaths of four people who drowned in the Channel on the day he crossed. Although it was later clarified in court that he had no knowledge of or involvement in the deaths, the false report was circulated publicly, and he was charged with ‘endangering life’.
No evidence of ‘deterrent’
Both the government and Judge James, who sentenced Tajik and Ali, have stated that such prosecutions are necessary to ‘save lives at sea’ and deter crossings. Yet even Home Office analysts have admitted there is no evidence that harsh measures deter people from trying to make irregular journeys to the UK.
This can be seen in the numbers. Since 2022, new hostile pieces of legislation have been passed every year to target asylum seekers, victims of trafficking and torture, and children – yet 41,472 people crossed the Channel in small boats last year.
People make these dangerous journeys when there are no safe alternative routes they can access. Crossings and the harms associated with them will not stop for as long as that is the case.
On the other hand, there is substantial evidence that British investment in French policing makes crossings more dangerous, not less. The rising number of deaths in the French shallows, for instance, has been directly linked to British funding in northern France. Scared of being beaten and tear-gassed by police on beaches, people are more likely to wade into the water, panic, and drown.
The ‘illegal arrival’ and ‘endangering life at sea’ offences do not address the reality of the situation. They scapegoat individuals for harms produced by the government’s own policies and, in doing so, produce further harm to people already seeking safety.
Tajik and Ali are two people among hundreds swept up in a system designed to perform toughness rather than save lives. Imprisoning asylum seekers for seeking safety is a gross breach of the rights of refugees in the UK. It must end now.
