Scum & get it

A News of the World reporter spent a week undercover in Calais living with over 1,000 illegal immigrants waiting to invade Britain. What he discovers makes chilling reading...

EVERY night hundreds of illegal immigrants in Calais make their bid to get into Britain on the backs of lorries. Soon there will be thousands more as a new Sangatte-style refugee centre opens.

Our reporter DANIEL SANDERSON went undercover among them to find out who helps them and feeds their determination to get in. What he discovered, in five violence-packed days, will sicken every reader.

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IF AN army marches on its stomach, then the French are doing everything they can to help this one invade England.

Night after night I watch as they fatten up hundreds of illegal immigrants to give them strength for the last stage of their journey across the Channel.

They offer them blankets to keep them warm. Hot showers to refresh them in their determined bid to live off our taxes.

Every now and then French police diplomatically arrest a few. But it's just window dressing. After two nights in jail, they let them out to rejoin the queue for the backs of lorries.

This is the craziness that is Calais—and five days undercover here posing as an illegal immigrant is enough to make you realise the world has gone mad.

It is freezing, I have just arrived at the refugee shanty town and I am among 500 queuing for food served in red plastic containers from a grey cabin in a park just a mile from the port.

Included on the refugees' menu is rice, pasta, potatoes and bread—high-energy foods for a lowlife reason.

"The French don't want us here," says Iraqi Louis Emad as he tucks into rice, chicken and peas on a barren stretch of wasteland. "They give us food so we've got enough energy to jump on a lorry for England.

Fight

"It took me seven months to get here from Baghdad. I was tired and hungry and thought about going back home. But I've eaten two meals a day for the last week and now I'm strong enough to finish the trip."

Emad is among thousands of Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis, Ethiopians, Kenyans, Eritreans, Pakistanis and Turks flowing into the turbulent port.

A fight breaks out at the van as people grapple for a carrier bag containing rice, a piece of bread, cheese and an apple. A man is hit in the face. Worse will happen in a couple of days

I fall in with a taxi driver, Louis. He paid smugglers £2,000 to sneak him through Syria, Turkey, Greece and Italy.

Now he plans to sneak into a lorry when the driver's back is turned and complete the final leg of his 3,000-mile jourey.

But what about the French police, I ask. Aren't you worried about being caught?

He shrugs. "The French catch us and throw us in jail for two days but we keep trying until we get through," he says. "Four of my friends hid under a lorry last week but ended up in Belgium, not England. Now they'll have to come back to Calais."

SHOULD THE FRENCH ENCOURAGE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WITH FREE FOOD?

Astonishingly Louis, whose brother already lives in London, claims he has a RIGHT to a job in England—because our troops are in his homeland. "The war has made my country very dangerous so I will go to England. Then I will be given a job and house."

Another day dawns in immigrant hell. Another 500 are here and the food queues are longer. Rations run out. Violence explodes near a campfire.

A crazed Afghan in his 20s picks up a metal bar and runs into the queue, swinging indiscriminately at people.

Another man chases him with a burning wooden plank before beating him with it repeatedly as he lies groaning on the railway track nearby.

Suddenly a blue van rumbles into view—the shower van. Driven by a church volunteer, it takes seven at a time for a wash and brush-up. Fights break out as women clambering in the back are hauled back by men. The volunteer gives out old clothes to keep us warm. I'm given a blanket. Seconds later an Ethiopian snatches it off me.

Next day I meet Afghan Mustapha Javad, hoping for better luck. In the previous ten days he has twice been arrested after boarding lorries to Dover.

Swamped

"Every day I hide in bushes near the lorries. I've been caught by police twice but released after two days.

"They don't really want to catch me because I'm costing them money. The French would much rather I was in England.

"I don't understand why they feed us though. It encourages more people to come. If they didn't hand out free food, we wouldn't last long and be forced to turn back."

Don't worry, Mustapha. A new refugee camp in Calais—the brainchild of the port's mayor Jacky Hanin—is set to open later this month to make you all even more comfortable.

It is dubbed Sangatte 2 after the original controversial Red Cross centre which shut in 2002 after being swamped by more than 67,000 refugees.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy opposes it—but when it comes to stopping it he seems as powerless as the Calais police.

The locals are on Sarkozy's side. They have had enough of immigrants prowling the town in packs, intimidating people and sleeping in makeshift tents in bushes called "the jungle".

In the latest incident a gang of refugees plunged a machete through a woman's car roof after the boss of a petrol station asked them to move on. He tells me: "Everyone wants them gone. They surround people's cars and rip wing mirrors and aerials off. But the ports are controlled by gang bosses who charge up to £800 to get them onto a lorry. While that's happening they'll always be here."

Every night at 6pm, the refugees make their nightly bid to cross the Channel. I walk north with them towards the port. I watch them hiding in bushes.

"A hole in the fence, a dozy copper or a driver who takes his eye off the ball for a second. You name it, they'll find a way through," says one trucker.

And if they fail—it's back to the food queues to get their strength up for the next time. And, until someone in power sees sense, there will always be a next time.