06/11/2017 Inside Out East

We discover the Home Office has

failed to gather intelligence

about a smuggling gang

who operated in Suffolk.

The story behind a yacht

used to smuggle illegal

immigrants to the east coast.

We have traced its former owner

in Holland who met the people

smugglers and ask why

the authorities have

failed to speak to him.

There were two guys standing here,

both with their hoods on.

So I thought, OK.

The community village near Bedford

where former homeless people

can rebuild their lives

but where the rules are strict.

Like brutalising at breakfast.

Thanks/

And powerboat racing has been

here for more than a century.

But some believe new safety rules

are forcing people out of the sport.

Revealing the stories that

matter closer to home.

It's the last in the series.

That's tonight's Inside Out.

Hello, welcome to Southwold.

Now, when we think of smugglers,

we think of things like

pirates and these cannons.

But the east coast has been

described as a smugglers' paradise,

with repeated attempts to bring

illegal immigrants into Suffolk.

We have been to Holland,

to investigate the route one yacht

and the people on board talked

to get to Orford.

Richard Daniel has

this exclusive report.

The mouth of the River Ore

on the Suffolk coast.

It was here one morning in April

this year, that a yacht

called Sander ran aground.

As coastguards approached,

they noticed people going below deck

and the hatch being closed.

An inshore lifeboat then put a line

on the yacht and towed it up

the river to Orford.

There, Border Force officers found

six Ukrainians on board.

All were deported.

Its skipper - Hennadii Kurtoglu,

also Ukrainian - jailed for four

years for people smuggling.

He wasn't the first to bring

Ukrainians in on a yacht.

Nor was he the last.

And this is the boat he was trying

to smuggle them in on.

28 feet long -

a top speed of seven

and a half knots.

And two cabins below deck.

I want to know where

this boat came from.

And how its skipper almost succeeded

in smuggling six illegal immigrants

unnoticed into Suffolk.

We ran a check on the name Sander.

It was false.

And beneath the black

lettering on the stern,

the faint outline of a word.

Nauwena, on the bow.

another name.

Independence.

In one locker, a bag of potatoes

left behind by the smugglers,

the label in Dutch.

In another, bottles of liquid

alcohol used for cooker fuel.

Both pointed to the boat

starting its journey in Holland.

Zaandam is west of Amsterdam.

It's on a major shipping canal

which leads straight

out into the North Sea.

Nearby is Dekker Watersport.

We have a larger store here. A lot

of books.

This is where the smugglers bought

the cooker fuel and other supplies

before sailing to England.

He had no idea he was

dealing with criminals.

We found here the original receipt,

and there are some life jackets

and the fire alcohol.

And this was when?

The 26th April.

Just a few days before

the boat left for the UK.

On a shelf nearby, the life jackets

the smugglers bought,

the cheapest in the shop.

I want to show you, here's

the photograph of the boat.

That's the same.

If you look on the back, the

stripes.

The stripes.

Unmistakeable.

And has anyone come to talk to you?

No.

You were the first.

So it was the first

you knew of it as well?

Yes.

But what about the other

word on the boat?

Nauwena.

Just a few miles away,

the small village of Nauwena.

And its yacht harbour.

Peter Post kept his boat

here for several years.

Before unwittingly selling it

to the people smugglers this spring.

Is this your boat?

Ya, definite.

The Independence.

We had did holidays it, sailing.

We went to Eiselmeer,

day trips to the sea.

And you had lots of happy times?

Yeah, always.

He put the boat up for

sale on the internet.

Soon after, he got an email

from a man in London

called Peter Millar.

He said his son and skipper

were in Amsterdam.

And arranged for them to meet.

There were two guys standing here,

both with their hoods on.

I thought mm, OK.

There was one young guy, 22 or 23.

It was like they didn't want to be

seen.

There was one young guy, 22 or 23.

He was the one doing the talking.

In the conversation,

he didn't understand

anything about the boat.

The older guy, he didn't

speak any English at all,

and he was the skipper.

The men were in a hurry.

They bought it for 4,800 euros.

Paid in cash.

Somewhere in the back of my mind,

I thought drug-smuggling.

Yeah, that could be.

But people?

I thought oh, OK.

Has the British Border Force or

the Dutch equivalent been in touch?

No, not at all, nothing.

Nobody asked anything.

Hearing Peter's story,

I find it extraordinary

that the authorities haven't been

in touch with him.

He met the criminals involved.

We even have the contract

here for the sale of his boat signed

by the man who later

was sent to prison.

But he wasn't alone.

Had the British authorities

investigated further in Holland,

They might have traced the second

man at the Marina

and the man in London.

That could have led

them to the criminals

at the heart of this gang.

Stopping them from

smuggling yet more people.

So why are so many Ukrainians

putting their lives

in the hands of criminal gangs?

Kateryna Vinitskyi Sikoza left

the Ukraine six years ago

and now lives in Rotterdam

with her husband and daughter.

When I left Ukraine,

it was, er, yeah...

It's a life of just hunting

for food and money.

Tough?

Tough, yes.

You're thinking of how to feed

tomorrow your family.

Clearly some people are desperate,

they're paying money to gangs

to get them to the UK.

For me, I would never do that.

Maybe people from the warzone are

escaping like that, I don't know.

The judge in the Kurtoglu case

described East Anglia

as "a favourite target to land

illegal immigrants".

Five days after we returned

from filming in Holland,

the Flamingo here arrived

in Southwold harbour.

This time there were 19

Ukrainians on board.

And the boat yet again

had made the crossing

from Holland to England.

Four people, all of them

Ukrainian, have been charged

with people-smuggling.

And in 2014, under cover

of darkness, six Ukrainians

were smuggled onto Orford Quay.

A gang of four

Ukrainians were jailed.

One of them said he'd made

the journey seven times before.

Those who work on the coast

say it's wide open.

Does anybody know what's

going on out there?

There's nobody keeping an eye on it.

You see yachts coming and going.

Especially in summertime.

You can buy any flag

on the internet, can't you?

Dutch flag, German.

Do you see the authorities

very often?

Border Force come in now and again,

I can't remember the last time.

We don't see them in

the river here very often.

In the past year, this

volunteer rescue service has

increased its patrols

because of the threat

from people smugglers.

We've got 72 miles of isolated

coastline in Suffolk,

that doesn't include all the creeks

and all the navigatable waterways

that vessels can come into.

No-one's keeping an eye on it.

It's not so much say

the individual that comes in,

we all going to feel a little bit

of compassion for those

people, aren't we, that

may need a better life?

Here we are, we're a volunteer unit

you know, but it's not our main job,

our main job is rescue,

but now we've percolated

into immigration.

Patrolling the UK coastline

is the job of the Border Force.

Alert is one of four of its smaller

boats for inshore waters.

We have new powers to deal with

illegal immigration and modern

slavery. So we need to increase our

footprint to take action against

those of fences.

It's about making

the space a hostile

environment for criminals

to work in and exploit.

The reality is this,

yachts can still get in undetected.

And that is extremely worrying?

And that's why we've

upped our response against that.

To give us more capability of

getting into places...

They're still getting in.

We're trying our very best

to make sure that we're

getting against those.

It's not possible to be

everywhere, all of the time.

So why did the authorities fail

to contact Peter Post,

who sold his boat to the smugglers?

Or those who sold them equipment?

The Home Office wouldn't

be interviewed.

It told us there had been

a "thorough investigation".

And said...

where it believed someone could be

of use to an investigation it

would speak to them.

I've shown how easy

it is to buy a boat,

fill it with illegal immigrants,

and bring it across the North Sea

to the East coast.

Now in the case of the Independence,

it really was caught by pure

chance, there really

was no intelligence involved.

And local people say unless there's

much more investment

in people on the ground,

the problem of smuggling

will continue.

Some great detective

work by Richard.

And if there is something that

you think we should be

doing a story about,

I'm on twitter at David-insideout.

Or you can send me an e-mail

at the usual address.

You're watching Inside Out for

the East of England here on BBC One.

Coming up, staying in Suffolk

where safety concerns

about powerboats are causing more

than just a ripple.

Homelessness in our region

is rising every year

and as it starts to get cold,

we are reminded of just how awful it

must be to have no food or shelter.

People living in a very special

community in Bedfordshire know

all about that as all of them used

to the homeless.

-- they used to be homeless.

Shaun Peel paid them a visit.

Rob Danes has seen rock bottom.

And it isn't a good place.

But from all of that

hurt comes hope.

Like Rob, the people that live

at Emmaus Village Carlton have been

through the same mlil,

the same hell.

All the residents of this village

used to be homeless.

They call themselves companions.

Like a lot of people, I had a house,

cars, well-paid job.

One or two wrong decisions

and within three or four months,

I found myself homeless.

I spent around five

years on the streets.

And then somebody told me

about Emmaus and I've been with them

pretty much ever since.

The village, near Bedford, is on the

site of a former reform is cool.

-- a former reform school.

It's now home from homelessness.

The companions live on-site in three

accommodation blocks.

They have to sign off

all benefits apart from housing

which goes towards their keep.

They have an allowance spending

money each week as drugs

and alcohol forbidden.

BEEP.

Each morning, the companions take

a breathalyser test.

It was their idea.

Brilliant.

It's just to help us be aware

and if there was drinking issues,

we will be getting breathalysed

in the morning.

Very rarely is it an issue.

When you have to go back

to your room and sober up.

Because of the reuse trucks,

we are dealing with the public

and things like that.

So it's a good thing.

We were sceptical at first,

but it is a good thing.

If more companies did

that, you would find...

You know, you can address

people's drinking issues,

drinking problems and make it

a safer place.

It's just part of our morning, now.

We don't even think about it.

The first Emmaus community

was founded in France in 1949

by Father Henri-Antoine Groues,

better known as an Abbe Pierre.

He was an MP, a Catholic priest

and a member of the Resistance

who fought to provide homes

for those who lives

on the streets of Paris.

Inspired by Abbe Pierre,

the village at Carlton gives

companions their lives back.

They can stay as long as they want,

or use it as a crutch and move on.

The first Emmaus community was set

up in Cambridge in 1991.

Now there are around 30

across the UK, providing work

and self-respect in equal measure.

It isn't just a bed for the night,

it's a reason to get

out of it the morning.

People can stay here

as long as they want to.

There is no criteria

for time-limit on Emmaus villages,

which is a really positive thing.

So there is no sense

that they have got a deadline

when they have got to move on.

So for some people, they will stay

here for six months,

some may stay for longer.

All the companions come

with a history of skills.

So, when they come and join us, we

try and do a skills audit with them.

We try and find out

what is their skill set

and what their interests.

A nice set of golf

clubs there, Shelley!

If we get some furniture,

a chair or a table, and it needs

a bit of tender loving care,

then we have got a workshop

here and some of our companions

are skilled in doing that.

And they might just

sanded down, painted.

And then it is reusing it,

recycling it, and then we will try

and sell it in the shops.

It's another source

of income for us.

I lost my mum in September,

the day after my birthday.

Six weeks later, I lost my dad.

And Christmas came and got a bit

dark and basically I just

spiralled downwards,

down and down and down.

And I ended up in the woods.

Living for nearly a year, homeless.

So, yeah.

At the weekend, the

companions do the cooking.

Today, Manuel and Peter

are in charge of the kitchen.

My wife died in 2011.

And my life went absolutely turmoil.

Said goodbye to her to go to work

and I got back in the evening,

she was dead on the city.

-- she was dead on the sofa.

And it was a brain haemorrhage.

Neither she nor me knew

that was coming at all.

And it took...

I really haven't got over it.

And that was six years ago.

And I probably never will.

That was a time when I went

straight into drink.

And lost, basically, everything.

And then...

Not suicidal, but I was

on the verge of suicidal.

Because life without Rhona was no

life at all, as far as I could see.

There are 42 places

at Carlton for men and women.

It is a social enterprise with shops

selling second-hand goods.

Lots of charities help the homeless,

not sell second hand stuff,

-- a lot sell second-hand stuff,

but is the sense of community

which makes this place different.

Tom used to be a companion,

now he is the recycling manager.

Firstly, we try to reuse

as much as possible.

Whether that be through resale,

refurbishment or reuse.

That could be a number of things.

That could be donations to other

charities, using it to ourselves

as equipment in our shops

or offices, or giving it to people

that need it more than we do.

One bacon sandwich on white...

is that to eat in?

Ian works in the bistro

and like many of the companions,

he once had it all before it

all went wrong.

I'll bring them over to you.

Just wait there, I'll

bring them over to you.

Homelessness has many

forms and causes.

The list is as long

as the cold nights of winter.

Marriage breakdown,

bankruptcy, redundancy, drugs,

gambling, alcohol, debt.

We run a soup kitchen in Bedford

city centre on Thursday and we help

out on a Saturday night in a soup

kitchen and between those two

nights, will probably see

well over 100 people.

Not all of those people are street

sleeping because of drink and drugs,

less than half the people

in the Emmaus community

in the UK are here through

drink and drug problems.

There are other things that

affect people's lives.

And I would say to people,

talk to a street homeless person,

see where they are there.

-- see why they are there.

They are not all drunk,

they are not all high on drugs.

Buy them a cup of coffee,

by then a sandwich.

These people are scared, lonely...

Hungry, angry, lonely and tired.

That's the four emotions

that people go through.

I wasn't one of these people

that begs for money.

I would never be like that.

But I honestly now can

understand why people do.

I mean, there was a chap

in a while ago and I offered him

some money and I said to him,

I said you will from only by a drink

-- I said, I expect you will only

purchase a drink with this or

something. And he said, I don't

drink.

I'm teetotal.

He literally is working

on the street to get

some money to buy food.

That literally is all he wants.

And a bed.

By the time I reached 21,

knew if I did change my life,

-- if I did not change my life,

I would from a blue dye is quite

a young age.

So, luckily, I came across Emmaus.

I came here, they were very

supportive of me, helps me

through all of my issues.

I am now teetotal and have been

for almost four years.

So if it wasn't for this place,

God knows where I would be today.

Because I've come such a long

way from where I was,

the children have a relationship

with their dad again.

So I thank Emmaus for that.

I'm looking forward to leaving

here at some point so I can

live independently.

I'm looking forward to that day.

And my mind is OK.

And I can actually do it

and I know I can do it.

It's great to see a place like that

giving people a second chance.

Oulton Broad here in Suffolk

has-beens anonymous

-- is synonymous

with powerboat racing.

It goes back more than a century.

But there are some people who fear

that that tradition could dwindle.

MUSIC, ENGINES REVVING.

There has been power boat racing

here at Oulton Broad in Suffolk

for more than a century.

The very first race

was in August 1903.

Just six motorised boats took part

and they were steam powered.

Today, it s very different.

This is the biggest day

in the racing calendar

for the Lowestoft and Oulton Broad

Motor Boat Club.

But there are fears from some

that this tradition of motor racing

here could be eroded

because of a change in safety rules.

the second heat of this year's big

trophy race...

This is the earliest

footage known to exist,

with some wonderful commentary!

This time, another grim struggle

between the two who won last year.

The boats may be small, but are they

fast?

David Jones has a real

love for racing.

This is a fabulous vessel, it

doesn't seem mind there is much to

eight!

This is a rebuilt 1960s

hydroplane.

So you're lying here?

This is where you as the driver

lying, stealing...

Steering with one

hand and one hand on the throttle.

That's it. You normally hold the

wheel about three or four o'clock.

And as you come to return...

You

have the full purchase of the wheel.

Why did powerboat racing start here?

Adventurous people. People get a

buzz for speed and I've got to do

it.

But just like a motorbike

racing, powerboat racing can also be

dangerous. Thankfully, fatalities

are rare.

The Royal Yachting Association

regulates power boat racing.

And has brought in some

tougher safety measures.

And you would expect

the organisation that oversees this

kind of sport to make

sure it s safe.

But some here believe they re TOO

stringent and are forcing

people out of the sport.

This is my old helmet, or the helmet

I would use now.

And one of those

drivers is David Jones.

He claims the new helmet he has

to wear, is more dangerous

than the one he s always worn.

It s an open face hat,

as opposed to a full face hat,

which has a visor there.

If I go in the water I won t

get the bucket effect

which is all the water shooting up

here and doing that,

because the water can

come out this way.

If you have imagine a bucket

upside down and that goes

in the water like that,

the water will do that,

to the back of your neck,

and I will not agree with that.

The Royal yachting Association sent

me a statement. The organisation

said that they are happy to work

with any individual to educate them

about the technology to help them

understand safety improvements which

are of lucky for their benefit.

Tom Roberts races Formula two

boats, that can reach

speeds of up to 100 mph.

So, Tom, you've got

the new style of safety measure

with this helmet here?

Yes, that's right, David.

We use the frontal head

restraint system now.

Ray Read races Formula

two boats like Tom.

And in the summer,

he crashed his boat.

He says the new neck restraint

hindered his escape.

Yes, I was upside down

in the cockpit, tried

to release myself by...

We have a training regime every year

we have to go through,

to open the cockpit canopy,

take the steering wheel off

and take the harness off,

so we can get free and I had

difficulty releasing myself.

The neck restraint at the back of my

neck was catching on the cockpit,

so at that point in time,

I was unable to release myself.

So I quickly felt for my air

regulator, to put it in my mouth

and I was then breathing

on my own and the driver

was there almost immediately after,

the driver was there to pull me out

of the cockpit and release me.

It must have been terrifying, you're

under the water and you're stuck.

Yeah it was a very

scary few seconds.

Without doubt it made it

more difficult for me.

I'm not a great fan

of the neck restraints.

But the regulations are we have

to use them, I've personally written

to the RYA suggesting this should

not be mandatory, but at

the driver's discretion.

Malcolm Curtis is the Safety Officer

with Oulton Broad Power Boat Club.

I think some of those things should

be left to the drivers to decide.

It's a personal choice -

there should be some things that

are mandatory and there should be

those left to individuals,

if they feel the risk of having

a neck injury is greater

than the risk of drowning, then

obviously they should feel free.

Do you think that some of these

safety measures could mean fewer

people want to take up the sport

and more people will

leave the sport?

It's potentially the case.

I know of at least two drivers

who have already stopped racing

because they won't race

with the frontal head restraint.

That has had an impact.

But there are fewer and fewer young

people taking up the sport.

But Thomas is one of those

taking up the sport,

He's just really enjoyed it,

there's a lot of safety measures go

on so overtly it's a dangerous sport

but you've only got to look around

you, there's rescue boats,

safety marshaling and actually I'd

rather him be doing

this than on the Xbox.

Do you think you'll pursue it?

Yeah, I love it and I got a win.

You one? For an inaugural race,

that's pretty spectacular. Is it

beginner 's luck or a start of a new

career?

Start of a new career.

Obviously the sport

has to be regulated.

But some people are really worried

that these new rules will eventually

kill off the tradition of powerboat

racing here in Suffolk.

But it's hoped the differences can

be ironed out and with young people

still showing an interest

in the sport, the tradition

of powerboat racing at Oulton Broad

will go on for another 100years.

And it's only when you get up close

to those birds that you rely is how

fast they go! That's it for Inside

Out, and I will be back in the New

Year. In the meantime, if you want

to get in touch with me about a

story, I'm on Twitter. Or drop me a

and e-mail. -- or drop me an e-mail.

In January, we will be meeting a

stand-up comic who is tackling

bullying in the classroom.

She's my

little sister but she grew up a jury

came my big little sister.

And the

composer Benjamin Till grew up by

the river and his neoclassical work

is to be premiered at the Royal

Albert Hall. That Inside Out, back

in the New Year.