51-year-old driver sentenced for trying to traffick 11 Albanians from France to UK

 Peter Martin

 A 51-year-old man has been convicted after trying to traffick 11 Albanian nationals into England. Peter Martin, 51, was stopped by border police officers in Coquelles in 2016. In a routine control the police opened the back door of his van and found 10 Albanians - man and woman. Martin was found guilty of human trafficking and jailed for five and a half years.

A trial against him was held on May 2017 and he was set free, but has been arrested some months later in Ipswich. Peter Martin claimed that a gang had threatened to kill him if he did not get involved in human trafficking with Albanians to UK. 

At the start of his trial, he admitted he was trying to traffick people in the UK, but said he had acted under pressure and pleaded himself not guilty.

He told the Court that an unidentified Albanian gang had threatened to kill him and his family if he did not get the people from France to send them to the UK.

David Fairclough, of the Immigration Implementation in UK, said: "This was a sophisticated attempt to illegally traffick people into the UK. Martin knew what he was doing and his claims were down. He was not acting under pressure."