"I Navigated the Channel in a 9ft Dinghy After Going Undercover in a Calais Migrant Camp—Here’s Why Entering the UK Is So Simple"

IT WAS pitch black as Lee West launched his 9ft dinghy into the sea at Calais.

He’d spent the last three days undercover at a migrant camp before sneaking down to the beach with one goal in mind: to cross the home.

Lee West, right, and lifelong pal Paul O’Dwyer crossed the Channel on a 9ft dinghyCredit: Lee West The pair infiltrated the camp and chatted to migrants, posing as French Foreign Legion desertersCredit: Lee West The old gym which formed part of The Jungle camp, full of rubbish and a few tentsCredit: Lee West

Lee, along with his lifelong friend Paul O’Dwyer, had flown from the UK to and spent a few days sleeping rough and in micro migrant camps in the French capital before getting a coach to Calais.

The town boasts the country’s largest passenger port and main ferry gateway to Britain – and is where thousands of migrants every year tramp before attempting to illegally cross the roughly 18 nautical miles by boat to seek asylum.

Lee was speaking to The Sun about his treacherous trek from 2019 as damning figures show – as Home Office negotiators fly to Paris to renew a £500million which could otherwise see a surge of more migrant arrivals in the UK.

Since Lee and Paul’s crossing, preventative measures have increased, including French police extensively patrolling the coast, including with drones – but those successfully reaching Britain continue to rise year on year.

Lee and Paul, both from , South , were on leave at the time from the Royal Marines and Engineers, respectively, when they made the dangerous trek.

Despite their military background, they wanted everything to be as unplanned as possible.

The vessel they were using was tiny and far less seaworthy compared to the boats used by actual migrants – it had been borrowed from another pal who used it to fish in Swansea Bay.

And they had no route plotted, with the only the small engine on the back of the dinghy, and torches strapped to their heads.

Setting off at 2am also upped the risk factor – they planned to simply head for the red lights on the high mast of the Dover transmitting station.

Lee and Paul’s expedition was part of Trampface, a project they set up and which raised for with a series of undercover social experiments over several years from 2014.

They’d lived homeless on the streets of the UK, as well as running a marathon and even previously visited Calais’ infamous Jungle migrant camp as it was cleared by police in 2016.

But with Channel crossings becoming more prevalent from late 2018, the following April they decided to return to France and try the crossing themselves, without permission and with no safety net.

Lee told The Sun: “It was so topical at the time, the crossings were getting more and more – we thought let’s try.”

Having spent three days in the Calais migrant camp – in the woods and scrublands bordering the old Jungle grounds – posing as French Foreign Legion deserters, they’d found a slipway down to a launching spot on the beach in the early hours.

Another friend, Nicky, had smuggled a dinghy and engine in the back of his van on a ferry from Dover and met them at a nearby .

Then, on the beach at midnight, they began noisily pumping up the boat with the van’s battery, convinced they’d be caught.

But no one stopped them, and once they were ready, standing there in the dark, the surf lashing onto the beach, and the prospect of hours of toil ahead, not to mention possible death, there were more than just butterflies.

Dad-of-one Lee explained: “There were a lot of feelings as we prepared to launch.

“There were all sorts that could’ve gone wrong.

“What if we capsize in the middle of the Channel? No one’s coming for us, no one could see us, it was pitch black.”

He added: “There was a lot of trepidation… We didn’t take it lightly, we knew it was pretty stupid.”

Lee and Paul’s pal Nicky, who smuggled the dinghy in his van dressed as a comedy FrenchmanCredit: Lee West They also smuggled a blow up doll with Only Fools and Horses character Gary’s face printed on itCredit: Lee West Migrants gathered outside a group of tents in the campCredit: Lee West The pair managed to avoid detection, despite crossing one of the world’s busiest shipping lanesCredit: Lee West

Lee, now 47, said there was also a “fear of failure”, the idea of getting caught and being brought back.

They’d made friends with some of the migrants at the camp, and had been welcomed into a community of Syrians who ran their own makeshift kitchen and moneymaking schemes selling mobile phones, SIM cards and food to other migrants.

They’d even seen secretive late night meetings in which plans were made for crossings, and the promise of meeting “agents” who would provide the boats and launch points for money.

Those attempting to cross would be shaking everyone’s hand “like men going off to war”, as other migrants wished them good luck.

More often than not, however, hours later they’d be trudging back, having been stopped by patrols.

‘It’s not so black and white’

During their time in the Calais camp in 2019, Lee and Paul had spent their days chatting to as many migrants as they could.

He said many would tell them a “sob story version” of how they felt hard done by in their country.

But many he felt for, including a young man who said he simply wanted to get to Britain to get a proper education.

“This young lad showed us all these videos and said he hoped to go to school in ,” Lee explained.

Lee and Paul drank a couple of cans of beer for Dutch courage before first heading into the camp in CalaisCredit: Lee West Paul chats to other camp inhabitantsCredit: Lee West NGOs fed the migrants each day – usually with stew, rice and other basic foodsCredit: Lee West

“I thought I really like this lad, he seems genuine – I’m rooting for him.”

He went on to say: “We met these people and it does change it from what you’re seeing on the , and it’s not so black and white.

“They’re putting their trust in so-called experts – it is desperation.

“Like anything, when you get on the ground, it adds the human element to it.”

But despite the admiration he felt for many, Lee said: “The realist in me is going, it’s against the rules and the country can’t just let anyone in who wants to turn up.”

And he said “there is a sinister side to it”, including the shady underworld gangs who are profiting from the crossings.

There were a lot of feelings as we prepared to launch. There were all sorts that could’ve gone wrong. What if we capsize in the middle of the Channel? No one’s coming for us, no one could see us, it was pitch black

Lee West, Ex-Marine

When Lee and Paul headed off to make their own crossing there was no grand farewell – they slipped away in the dead of night without telling anyone at the camp.

And, luckily, they weren’t caught on the French side either.

They used Maps to find a slipway, and with Nicky, who’d also brought a blow up doll with character Gary’s face printed on it to travel with them – they sneaked down to the beach.

“We wanted it to be as little well-prepared as possible,” Lee said.

Lee and Paul spent three days in the camp before heading out onto the ChannelCredit: Lee West Piles of rubbish littered sections of the campCredit: Lee West The sun started to come up around halfway across the ChannelCredit: Lee West

“We didn’t want people thinking, ‘Of course, you’re in the Marines, and the Royal Engineers, you had time to plan everything’.

“This was off the cuff.”

By 2am and in the pitch black, they were ready to launch.

Lee said the most difficult part was getting beyond the surf itself.

“Once we got out on the Channel it was a bit choppy but we settled down a little bit, we could sort of see around us,” he explained.

He said the dinghy was 9ft long and “a lot less seaworthy than the ones you see migrants come across in”.

“They overload them, but they’re properly set up for going across the Channel.

“The one we were in, Nicky uses it to go fishing off Swansea Bay. It’s not suitable for crossing the Channel.”

Lee said out in the sea “everything is amplified when it’s dark”.

When they set off they could see the red lights on the high mast of the Dover transmitting station.

A row of tents where Lee and Paul were sleepingCredit: Lee West They spent their days exploring the camp and local area – including the infamous cleared section ‘The Jungle’Credit: Lee West Paul drags the dinghy onto the beach in Folkestone after the crossingCredit: Lee West

“We knew that’s the English coast, so we headed towards it,” Lee said.

“The fog came in pretty quick, so we lost track of that – but maintained a rough direction and then occasionally it’d come back into view.”

They crossed shipping lanes and could see the lights of ships but it was difficult to grasp how far away they were, or how big.

Any second they could have been bashed and capsized.

“There was no depth of perception,” said Lee.

Around halfway across there was a “flicker of light” as the sun started coming up and they could relax a little.

“We started to see the cliffs of Dover and we landed just off Folkestone Harbour,” said Lee.

As they came in at around 7am, he said they saw two border patrol boats cut across them, intercepting two other vessels that had landed down the coast from them.

On the shore, Lee and Paul were met once again by Nicky, who’d come back across the Channel on the ferry with his van.

This time he was dressed as a “comedy Frenchman”, with a striped shirt, beret and moustache, said Lee.

The three of them spent an hour dragging the dingy and engine up the shingle beach on a hill “like a travelator” – with Nicky doing shuttle runs with a wheelbarrow.

“If we’d been actual migrants we’d either have been gone,” said Lee. “Whatever their preferred option was – handed themselves in to claim asylum or gone on the run.”

He said they were in full view of various houses and assumes they eventually called the .

Lee described a “couple of bobbies” coming over initially to ask what they were doing – and then it escalated to Border Force and then the National Agency over a couple of hours.

He said one of the Border Force personnel seemed quite impressed, asking them bewilderedly: “You’ve come from northern on that? It’s Force 7 out there, lads, I don’t know how you’ve managed it, we’re not even sending out patrol boats in that.”

Lee said “he couldn’t believe it”, adding: “Some of them were impressed and some p***ed off because we pulled their pants down – we’d massively exposed them on a 9ft dinghy and were laughing about it.”

After some back and forth, and showing them their group and charity campaign, Lee and Paul were finally arrested on suspicion of , and spent 14 hours in custody.

They were eventually released under and given train warrants to get back home to , and found their had been raided by police.

A couple of weeks later, they were told no further action would be taken, and the case was dropped – and luckily, the military saw the funny side of it, well aware of the pair’s social experiments and charitable work.

Lee, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq as a Commando, was medically retired in February 2020 after losing the hearing in his left ear.

Dad-of-three Paul, sadly, died in 2021 alongside two others in a paddle-boarding tragedy on the River Cleddau.

To find out more on Lee’s books about his adventures and career click here.

Lee served in the Royal Marines until 2020Credit: X/@Royal_Marine_LW Lee did tours of Afghanistan and IraqCredit: X/@Royal_Marine_LW They launched from Calais at 2am in the pitch blackCredit: Lee West ‘Gary’ at the head of the dinghy as it lands on the beachCredit: Lee West