Asylum seeker boat pilot loses appeal over deadly sinking in English Channel

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy An asylum seeker found guilty of killing four migrants who died in an inflatable boat he piloted across the English Channel has lost his bid to challenge his convictions and sentence. open image in gallery Protesters in support of Ibrahima Bah attended the previous hearing In a ruling on Wednesday, the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said Bah could not bring the appeal, ruling it was not “arguable”. She said in her ruling: “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, adding: “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 had opposed the appeal bid. Duncan Atkinson KC, for the CPS, previously said: “This is a case where the passengers on the boat were acting in concert with their pilot.” The barrister continued: “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.” A total of 39 survivors were brought to shore in the port of Dover after a UK fishing boat crew came across the sinking dinghy with help from the RNLI, air ambulance and UK Border Force.