Dover Investigation
I wanted to understand what was in UK regarding migrant crossings, So over the past week of September 30th I documented the events happening in Dover to give a clearer picture to the public.
I followed developments in the English Channel, I documented it on UK Dispatch. During the live coverage, I saw coaches that appeared to be full of people leaving the Port. However, when the home office published the figures the following day, The reported number of arrivals was lower than I had expected, Based on what i witnessed.
The week gave me a clearer view of how the process works at Dover. The footage below, Filmed from my perspective, shows a Border Force vessel bringing people ashore after being picked up in the Channel followed by coaches arriving to transport them.
I am sharing it to give the public first-hand view of what i witnessed, Some people might assume the images and videos they show on TV show everything, but thats not what i witnessed or found.
Some people may assume that they arriving at Dover is taken away by coach, but while monitoring live footage from the port, I observed multiple vans leaving the area and the livestreamer said migrants were inside.
I saw multiple vans on the live and other lives leave Dover, One Live Streamer called Dover Patriot said there were people inside.
A officer reported comments during a protest raised a further question for me, How much freedom police officers have to express their personal views about government policy on migrant crossings, especially if doing so could affect their careers. I couldn't save the footage from the livestream that was happening that day so can't independently verify the officer's exact words.
Sunday,27 September, was the busiest day of my investigation in Dover.
During my observations, I counted 17 coaches leaving the port and the photos below were taken that day.
During my research, I also came across reports of people being transported from the UK to France on lorries. In February this year, Border Force reportedly found 33 people hidden inside a lorry preparing to leave the UK. Reports were described as a separate incident in which 23 people were found inside a lorry being transported to France.
These cases raised further questions for me about the movement of people across the channel in both directions and the role of organized smuggling networks.
When doing this documentation, I found out in February this year border forces found 33 people hidden in a lorry at Dover but it was leaving the UK. 33 people paying a grand to be smuggled out of Britain to France on a lorry.
One smuggler Jaskirat Singh aged 25 got jailed for 5 years and three months for making £185,000.
Singh claimed he was letting 60 people a week leave Britain illegally.
During my investigation in Dover, I photographed the scene outside the port. Some security staff were wearing masks, which made it hard to identify them.
This was the same time as protests were happening in Dover, during which kent police reportedly said people should not cover their faces.
The photo shows a masked Security staff member standing near the access gate.
During my investigation in Dover while following developments on Tiktok Live, I saw protesters blocking the road as a coach attempted to leave the port. The coach managed to get through and i managed to get it on record.
I included this footage to give readers a first-hand scene as it appeared online.
Credit and Sources: This investigation draws on my own observations in Dover and publicly available livestreams shared by independent content creators/ or live streamers documenting events in Dover. I was not physically present in this investigation.
