A Western Daily Press journalist has shown how easily illegal immigrants or terrorists could enter Britain without trace.

In just four days, the paper’s investigative reporter Roger Tavener was twice smuggled into the country from France undetected, using a fishing boat and a conventional P&O ferry.

The Westcountry newspaper decided to conduct an investigation after receiving a huge postbag of letters from concerned readers on the issue of aylum seekers.

So Roger decided to pose as an asylum seeker or possible terrorist, to see what checks, if any, would be made.

And he found that he was able to sail from international waters into a West port on a fishing boat and walk ashore without any checks, and also travel undetected by French customs officers in the back of a van on a cross-Channel ferry.

On both journeys no search of his baggage was carried out either – showing how easy it would be to bring deadly substances such as ricin, anthrax or semtex into the country.

Carrying out his investigation, Roger was unshaven, scruffily dressed, with a Swiss Army knife and a heavy bag.

Roger began his cross-Channel test journey from Sangatte, on the outskirts of Calais, once the site of the controversial open-to-all reception camp for refugees seeking entry to Britain.

He said: “We had entered France with no check of what we were carrying in the back of the van.

“Just four hours later we arrived for a late afternoon P&O crossing to Dover. I sat in the back of a hired white van as we pulled up at French immigration.

“A young woman took a cursory look at passports and booking ticket, but had no idea I was hiding in the back behind the driver.

“I could have been accompanied by a dozen immigrants each paying the £10,000 that many hand over for the journey to England.”

Once through this gate they were as good as free, and were told to go to to lane 92 for loading.

The trip was delayed for two hours because of the weather and during that time a security man wandered up and down the lanes of hundreds of vehicles looking occasionally through windows and apologising for the delay.

Roger said: “From then on it was plain sailing. After just 90 minutes I was able to step out of the van on to British soil.

“On the way out of the ferry port we showed our passports in the normal way to officers.

“But by then the immigrant had landed. They have to be apprehended in France to keep them out.”

And Roger found the boat trip even easier.

The skipper told him: “There are no checks. I could sail you from anywhere in Europe to anywhere in Britain. People, drugs, guns, anything, it’s easy.”

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