Home Office claims migrant boat pilots ‘face life behind bars’ are false, CPS guidance suggests

Exclusive: Official guidance for prosecutors says that sentences of two to three years are ‘appropriate’

More than 3,000 migrants crossed the Channel to the UK in June – the highest monthly total this year (PA Wire)

The Home Office has claimed that migrants who steer dinghies across the English Channel “could face life behind bars”, but the real jail terms are likely to be two or three years, The Independent can reveal.

New laws that came into force this week raised the maximum penalty for facilitating illegal immigration from 14 years to life imprisonment.

The same act made it easier to prosecute asylum seekers for piloting boats by removing a requirement that the offence had to be done for gain and making entering British waters without permission a crime.