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as an easy and “comfortable” journey, Nick said – sailing for around 10 hours from the Normandy coast across the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
As the yacht would approach the marina, a group of migrants would take an inflatable boat filled with fuel, he told us, and meet in the anchorage area, before climbing on board the yacht. Nick would then bring the migrants through the port, under the noses of local sailors and law enforcement.
“No-one’s going to check,” he said. “They’re going to think because you’re a sailor you’re coming and going all the time.”
But Nick’s luck was to run out in December 2018 when, he told us, he was caught packing cash for a second run while smuggling fuel down to the yacht. Following his trial the next year, Nick was sentenced to six years and eight months for conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and money laundering.
“People are going to hate me for what I’ve done, and I deserve people to hate me,” he said. “At the end of the day I feel bad for what I’ve done and I’m paying the price of it, and everything else will show when I get out.”
There is no suggestion Nick’s story represents a general pattern of criminality among ex-soldiers.
What is clear from the way the networks have adapted in the face of changing tactics, increased patrols, and tougher sentences, is that people smuggling across the English Channel will continue to evolve.
As last month’s incident in Newquay showed, people are still attempting to exploit this route into the UK, despite the dangers of being intercepted or shipwrecked in the world’s busiest waterway.
Border Force says it is constantly adapting – but no-one can afford to become complacent.