Revealed: Border Force's scrapped plans to turn migrant boats around

Safety concerns ruled out interceptions in Channel

- By Michael Knowles Home Affairs Editor

BORDER Force drew up plans to give officers batons and armour in case migrants jumped onto their boat while being turned around, it can be disclosed.

New documents submitted to an inquiry gave a detailed account of how the UK planned to intercept dinghies and turn them back into French waters.

But the plans were dropped over safety concerns.

Their publication comes as French police finalise their tactics to begin intercepting boats in shallow waters. This is likely to begin at the end of next month, when specially-trained riot police start patrolling the beaches.

The British plans - marked Official Sensitive - revealed how a Border Force vessel could draw up alongside the migrant vessel (MV) before knocking the front section of it using tactical contact to slowly turn it around while the engine was running.

This would be repeated until the migrant dinghy was heading back into French territorial waters.

And Border Force drew up plans for two vessels to box a migrant boat in on both sides and guide it back towards French waters.