Bah, who is Senegalese, was targeted by prosecutors because he had been picked from among the passengers to steer the boat. As prosecutors noted, members of the people-smuggling gangs do not ordinarily put themselves in harm’s way to steer boats; on Bah’s evidence, he was forced into it.
So what? I daresay getaway drivers could claim the same thing, it wouldn't protect them. He was still attempting to enter the UK illegally.
It is for that reason that some campaigners see Bah, now 20, not as responsible for the deaths of four people but as a victim of people smugglers, whose business model is sustained by the government’s refusal to open safe and legal routes.
Ah, yes, these people have no choice because they want something they can't have. So the obvious solution is to let them have it! Well, it seems to be the policy for shoplifters these days too...
Bah is just the latest small boat pilot to be prosecuted under powers expanded in 2022.
Let's hope not the last! But who could possibly object to this policy?
Fizza Qureshi, the chief executive of Migrants’ Rights Network, said: “People are being forced into those boats and, instead of them being dealt with as victims – someone who’s been essentially trafficked to the UK, they’re seen as a criminal.”
They are criminals.
Julia Tinsley-Kent, the group’s spokesperson, said: “When you look at the Home Office’s comms generally around migration, it’s just really vile. And the way they talk about these ‘victories’, what they’re doing is horrendous.”
No, what they are doing - and it's vanishingly rare these days that they do it - is their job, carrying out the will of the British public, who don't want their country overrun by more economic migrants breaking our laws to come here.
After the verdict on Monday, Captain Support UK – a solidarity platform for those accused of piloting boats to Europe – said Bah’s conviction was a “violent escalation in the persecution of migrants to ‘stop the boats’”.
Good! Bring it on, more of it and more often.
