Asylum seeker who piloted boat that led to four migrant deaths loses bid to challenge convictions and sentence

An asylum seeker who piloted a boat that lead to four migrant deaths has lost his bid to challenge his convictions and sentence.

Ibrahima Bah was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to nine-and-a-half years imprisonment after the deaths as he drove an “unseaworthy” boat between France and the UK in December 2022.

During his retrial at Canterbury Crown Court, Bah claimed smugglers threatened to kill him if he did not pilot the boat.

However, the prosecution argued that he was lying, and said he owed his passengers a “duty of care.”

The 20-year-old Senegalese national was also convicted of facilitating illegal entry to the UK.

At a hearing earlier this month, the man brought his case to the Court of Appeal to try and get the green light to challenge his convictions.

However in a ruling today, the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said Bah could not bring the appeal, ruling it was not “arguable.”

Jurors heard that the low-quality boat was meant to carry 20 people but was packed with 45.

Richard Thomas KC, for Bah, told the Court of Appeal that it has been a “joint endeavour” to travel to the UK and that the man’s actions “meant that a passage to the UK was available so tragically the deceased availed themselves of that passage.”

He said: “The availing themselves of the passage, which they did so knowing the risks involved, is precisely the autonomous choice that breaks the train of causation.”

Barones Carr, sitting with Mr Justice Dove and Mr Justice Murray, dismissed this argument.

In her ruling she stated: “The judge correctly analysed that the fact that the deceased volunteered to join the boat could not establish a break in the chain of causation; the evidence to that effect was thus irrelevant to causation.”

Baroness Carr also ruled that the trial judge gave the right directions to the jury, saying: “An instruction to the jury inviting them to consider whether the fact that the deceased boarded the boat of their own free will broke the chain of causation would have amounted to a misdirection.”

The Crown Prosecution Service has been in opposition of the appeal bid.

Duncan Atkinson KC, for the CPS, had previously stated: “This is a case where the passengers on the boat were acting in concert with their pilot.”

“It was not the background or the scene setting… it was the continued act of facilitation at the time of their deaths which provided the circumstances in which the deaths occurred.”

Three of the people who lost their lives were known only as unknown male persons while the other man was identified as 31-year-old Hajratullah Ahmadi.