Police Hunt Channel Tunnel Fugitives

Police in Kent were today searching for a group of about 40 illegal immigrants who appear to have tampered with the brakes of a Channel Tunnel freight train in order to smuggle themselves into the UK.

The train company, English, Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS), believes the immigrants boarded the train at a freight yard in Frethun, near the French port of Calais.

A spokesman for EWS said the train, originally from Milan, had stopped at the Frethun yard before going through the tunnel at 6pm local time yesterday.

He said: "It came out of the tunnel at 6pm English time and as it came out, the train was brought to a stand because the brake pipes had been cut. The driver stayed where he was but everybody that was on it jumped off. They had hidden in the train and on the train."

"If you jump on it in Calais nobody is going to see you so it does not matter where you are, just somewhere you are not going to fall off," he said.

The immigrants jumped off the train near Folkestone and Kent police were called at about 6.20pm last night to carry out an extensive search of the area, said a police spokeswoman.

She said: "It looks like they tampered with the train. Three were detained last night, shortly after we got the initial call. Their origin is not confirmed but early indications are they are eastern European."

Responsibility for the three will be handed to immigration authorities, she said. She added that extensive searches for the remainder of the group were on-going.

An EWS spokesman said a decision by French authorities in November to reduce the number of inbound freight trains from 15 to five daily to guarantee security at Frethun had affected the British economy but had not stopped illegal immigrants.

He said the reduced service was costing EWS half a million pounds a week.

The spokesman added: "Now we have got a safety issue this side because we are concerned for the safety of our crews and the illegals on board."

He said EWS had campaigned for a fence at Frethun, which had been put up, but the answer to the problem would be enough security guards patrolling the French yard.

This latest breach of security came as Eurotunnel, the company that runs the Channel Tunnel, complained that asylum seekers had cost the company £20m in lost profits last year.

Eurotunnel said 2001 had been a difficult year, and its toughest problem had been disruption caused by asylum seekers.

The company's chief executive, Richard Shirrefs, said incursions into the French terminal led to significant disruptions to its freight shuttle services.

Mr Shirrefs said the group had reinforced security "well beyond the levels normally expected of a civilian site" and by the end of last year services levels were restored.

The company's chairman, Charles Mackay, criticised the French and British governments for failing to give Eurotunnel the support it needed.

"Protecting the operations of a company, particularly one of such importance to both countries, from illegal mass incursions is clearly part of the governments' responsibility for maintaining law and order. It cannot be right that Eurotunnel was left to deal with this problem largely on its own," he said.

However the company admitted its revenues - down 2% - were also affected by the weak telecommunications sector which meant it did not sell any of the fibre-optic cables that run through the tunnel to communications firms.

Flooding on both sides of the Channel and a decline in passenger and freight traffic as a result of the foot and mouth epidemic in Britain also hit Eurotunnel revenues.