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Couple hit with £1,500 fine after migrant clung to their motorhome has penalty cancelled
17 March 2025, 10:38
A couple hit with a £1,500 fine after they reported a migrant had clung to their motorhome have had their penalty cancelled after their story was highlighted by LBC.
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Adrian and Joanne Fenton alerted Essex Police after finding the 16-year-old migrant hidden inside the cover of a bike rack at their home last year.
Despite contacting police, the couple were handed a shocking £1,500 fine from the Home Office and accused of failing to "check that no clandestine entrant was concealed" in the vehicle.
But now, after the couple spoke to LBC’s Nick Ferrari, the Home Office has had a change of heart and revoked its unfair fine.
The pair told LBC they "thought they had done the right thing" after telling police and were shocked to receive the £1,500 in the post.
Ms Fenton said: “We got home at around 9:20pm in the evening. Normally our motorhome goes to a lock-up facility overnight, but it closes at 8pm so we had to bring it home.
Couple fined after reporting migrant
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“So my husband backed it up to the driveway, we opened the garage, I always unpack the front.
“My husband got out and went to do the bike cover and as he went to do it, he literally saw a pair of trainers.
“He thought to himself, ‘I don’t remember leaving a pair of trainers in the bike rack’.
“Then he saw a pair of legs and he just shouted at me ‘Jo Jo, phone the police!.
“So I phoned the police.”
The Home Office initially insisted the fine is “designed to target negligence rather than criminality.”
But Mr Fenton told LBC he and his wife "feared for their safety" upon finding the man atop their motorhome.
He said: “When we lifted up the cover, I was more shocked to start with and you’ve got to remember this is our home, we don’t know if the individual was carrying anything, so we did fear for our own safety.
“So I asked him to remain where he was until the police came.”
“I would say he was over 20, he told the police he was 16.
“The police were shocked more than anything because I don’t think our local force has ever dealt with something like this.
“But they were helpful.”
After the incident, Ms Fenton says they received no contact from the Home Office for several months until they received an email informing them of the £1,500 while they were visiting their daughter in Australia.
Responding to the email, Mr Fenton wrote: “At no point did I believe I would be fined by taking correct and moral action.”
Ms Fenton said: “We thought we’d done the right thing by phoning the police, these people are desperate, and also he knew where we lived.
“But what’s annoyed me is, we’ve done the right thing, but we heard nothing until October while we were in Australia visiting our daughter."
Following Mr Fenton's reply, the couple say they heard nothing until a letter arrived in their home in February informing them of the amount they are expected to pay.
Mr Fenton told Nick: “Why would any other person who hears this story call the police, because they know they will be fined.
“Anyone could have jumped in and it wouldn’t have been safe to check during our journey.”
The couple said they have no idea what happened to the migrant.
Following a wave of public support, the couple have seen their £1,500 fine reduced to zero.
In the wake of this good news, Mr Fenton told the BBC: "We don't want anyone else to go through what we've gone through.
"If someone does call the police because they've got someone discovered in their motorhome, Border Force shouldn't even be considering fining them because everyone's doing the moral and the right thing."
