Brit family return to UK to find Sudanese stowaway who hid on their motorhome for FOUR DAYS
A British family were stunned to find an immigrant had been clinging to their motorhome for four days after they returned from their tour of France.
The young immigrant from Sudan claimed he had been balancing on the rear axle underneath the 25-foot-long vehicle as it travelled back to Colchester in Essex.
Lisa Patterson, husband Mick, both 50, and daughter Summer 17, spent two weeks touring France in their luxurious motorhome when they headed home.
But after parking on the driveway of their home in Colchester, Essex, they spotted the young man emerging from the bottom of the motorhome and walking away.
Lisa stopped the stowaway, believed to be aged 17, before offering him mini cheddars and a bottle of Orangina.
She then called the police, who came to fetch the man and he was handed over to the Home Office.
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Lisa said: ‘My first reaction was ‘Oh my God, where on earth have you come from?’ and he pointed to underneath the car.
‘I asked him if there were anymore people under there and he just shook his head and in broken English, said ‘no, only one.’
‘We had toured down the middle of France towards Spain, and then back up along the coast.’
Lisa believes that the man had snuck under the motor home near Caen Ferry Port shortly before the family boarded the ferry home.
While they were parked at a supermarket nearby, she says that another man had tried to get in the the vehicle.
However the young man later insisted he had clung to the underside of the Auto-Trail Arapaho motorhome for four days.
When she called the police, Lisa said the man happily waited for them to arrive and didn’t try to escape.
She said she is in shock that he managed to travel under the vehicle for so long without being spotted.
Lisa added: ‘I can’t believe how we got through border control. There were police standing around but they didn’t pull anyone over.’
A spokesman for the Home Office, which deals with immigration, said: ‘Immigration Enforcement was contacted by Essex Police. A male who claimed to be from Sudan was arrested for immigration offences.
‘He was subsequently age assessed as a minor and passed into the care of social services. His case will be progressed in accordance with immigration rules.’
