A Bradford haulier fears for his future after figures revealed truckers caught carrying immigrants into Britain had been fined £500,000 in the first two weeks of a new Government penalty system.

The Telegraph & Argus highlighted the plight of hauliers in the district when the penalties - £2,000 for each immigrant found on a truck - were announced three weeks ago.

At the time lorry driver Terry O'Connor, from Bradford, revealed how he had been threatened at gunpoint by an illegal immigrant and asked to courier an Albanian baby to England by desperate refugees.

His boss John Daure, director of Saltaire firm Sanita Shipping Ltd, said small players in the industry were now even more scared of bankruptcy.

He said: "We have found immigrants on five of our trucks in the last three weeks - it's just lucky we discovered them before the authorities.

"We are having to open up all of our lorries at Calais now, costing us time and money just because of some half-baked idea a clown at the Government has come up with."

Hauliers argue that the fines are indiscriminate and do not take into account whether the drivers did or did not know the stowaways were on their truck.

The measures are designed to reduce the number of illegal immigrants coming into Britain through the ferry ports and deter truckers from engaging in the smuggling of humans.

The Government has argued that innocent drivers need not worry about being fined as long as they can prove they are not guilty.

But the reassurances are little comfort to Mr Daure. He said: "I am constantly having to worry about bankruptcy. I think it's just a matter of time before we are caught.

"I couldn't afford a spate of fines. If any of those five loads of immigrants on our trucks had been caught by officials, that would have probably been it for us."

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