{"id":607312,"date":"2026-05-27T21:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T21:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/607312\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T21:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T21:33:08","slug":"france-jails-scottish-man-for-attempted-small-boat-crossing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/607312\/","title":{"rendered":"France jails Scottish man for attempted small boat crossing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  John Frizell, born in 1979, had his address given as Glasgow in court documents.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The former was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ouest-france.fr\/societe\/justice\/juges-en-normandie-pour-avoir-tente-de-faire-passer-des-migrants-deux-britanniques-condamnes-a-des-peines-de-prison-351d26c2-59f0-11f1-8ba2-e862963f4a46?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">sentenced to 30 months in prison<\/a>, while his accomplice received a 15 month suspended sentence.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The court found that on the night of April 8 to 9 2026, the two men crossed the English Channel on an eight metre boat which belonged to Mr Frizell.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Read More:\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  They were accused of planning to make a return crossing with around 10 asylum seekers, including a three-year-old girl who was among five found on board along with the vessel&#8217;s owner.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heraldscotland.com\/topics\/refugees-and-immigration\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">migrants<\/a> said they had paid more than \u20ac1,000 per person (\u00a3866) for the crossing and had come from the Calais migrant camp popularly known as The Jungle.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Lawyers for the two men had requested acquittal on the grounds that the boat had not actually left the quay in Saint-Val\u00e9ry-en-Caux, while Mr Frizell said he had not done it for the money but as &#8220;a favour for a friend&#8221;.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The Rouen public prosecutor said the two men were &#8220;people smugglers&#8221; who &#8220;treated these people like objects, like merchandise with a price tag&#8221;.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The two men have been permanently barred from French territory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Frizell, born in 1979, had his address given as Glasgow in court documents. The former was sentenced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-607312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}