A MIDDLEWICH man has been jailed for three and a half years for attempting to smuggle an Albanian man into the UK earlier this year.

Albanian-born Skender Amati, of Laurel Close, was jailed along with a Romanian woman following sentencing at Canterbury Crown Court on Tuesday, August 16.

The pair travelled from Manchester to France in a British-registered car in the early hours of January 5, catching a ferry from Dover to Calais on a one-way ticket.

Just 52 minutes after arriving in Calais, they – along with a second man – attempted to enter the Channel Tunnel at Coquelles to travel back to the UK on another one-way ticket.

However, after close inspection of the trio’s travel documents, officers found that the second man was not the rightful holder of the Romanian ID card he had presented.

Amati, 50, and the 27-year-old Romanian driver Ana-Maria Roman, of Gorton, Manchester, were both arrested.

They later claimed they had travelled to Calais to visit Roman’s brother and picked up the man, who they believed to be Romanian, at a petrol station en route to the Channel Tunnel.

They were charged with assisting unlawful immigration into the UK on January 7. Roman pleaded guilty on April 11 and received two and a half years imprisonment.

Amati was found guilty on August 3 following a trial, and both were sentenced on August 16.

David Fairclough, assistant director at the Immigration Enforcement Criminal Investigations team, said: “This is an excellent example of well-trained Border Force officers identifying the incorrect documentation that was being used to attempt to facilitate this man’s illegal entry into the UK.

“This prison sentence should serve as a warning to anyone thinking of abusing our immigration rules. We will catch you, and you will face imprisonment.

“Working closely with Border Force colleagues our specialist and dedicated teams will rigorously investigate allegations of immigration related criminality.”