French councillor admits smuggling

A TOWN councillor from the Seine-et-Marne has pleaded guilty to helping to smuggle 16 Vietnamese immigrants from France to Britain.

Christiane Chocat, who sits on the Lumigny-Nesles-Ormeaux council on the outskirts of Paris, was arrested by UK border police on October 1 with her 20-year-old son Benjamin, who pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing this month.

The court heard that the pair had concealed 13 men and three women in the back of a hire van and boarded the Normandie Express ferry from Cherbourg to Portsmouth.

The immigrants spent the four-hour crossing in cramped conditions and were sent back to France immediately that evening.
According to the Portsmouth News, prosecutor Martyn Booth told the hearing: "We do not seek to go behind the suggestion that the son is the main player in this enterprise.

"Nor do we seek to challenge that she became involved in this enterprise out of some misguided desire to be supportive to that son.

"We don't accept that her knowledge was really quite limited as suggested and it's clear that she did play some part in the planning.

"We cannot comment whether or not she would have received any financial reward but, as I say, we do accept that she is a secondary of these individuals."
The pair were remanded in custody and are due to be sentenced on February 5. They could face up to 14 years in jail.