Three years' jail for people smuggling

PEOPLE-SMUGGLING kingpins convicted in the UK are likely to only spend a maximum of just over three years behind bars due to a lack of sentencing guidelines.

- By Jon Austin

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper have vowed to “smash the gangs” to stop small boats making perilous cross-Channel journeys.

But a judge revealed this is unlikely to happen while there are no clear guidelines to work from when they come before courts in England and Wales.

This became obvious during the sentencing of Pistiwan Jameel, 55, a West Midlands Railways cleaner who led a double life as a people-smuggling fixer for 15 years.

After arriving from Iraq in 2002 and being awarded citizenship in 2009, he used his Kurdish contacts in Europe to book seats on crossings, before taking payments in the UK to pass to the organisers.