Smugglers find new ways to circumvent French police
People smugglers appear to be changing their tactics in response to a more aggressive approach by French police by driving dinghies to the shore and dumping the car.
Over the course of the past two years, smugglers have increasingly pursued a so-called 'taxi boat' strategy whereby they use France's inland waterways to drive the dinghies before cruising along the coast to pick up migrants who are told to wade into the water to be picked up.
This was to circumvent police patrols on the beaches, which used high-tech radar equipment provided by the British to detect boats hidden in the dunes along the coast. Smugglers would inflate the dinghies on the morning of the launches as migrants waited to board but after a 2023 deal with Rishi Sunak's government that significantly improved their detection equipment and led to two thirds of boats being stopped by the French police, the smugglers switched to the taxi boat model.
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Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Huge boat of 60 migrants launch from French beach towards the UK - because police were in the wrong place
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BBC News
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Jacky Jhaj: How was a paedophile able to hire Disneyland?
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The Sun
a day ago
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Locals fear Brit mum's murder in French village was professional hit as children break silence on unsolved killing
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He said: "I've come to realise that there is a possibility that the culprit may never be identified and we as a family will need to learn and accept that." The mayor of Trémolat Éric Chassagne was one of the last people to see Karen alive, as he had also been at the small gathering at Guerrier's property. Chassagne, who has been mayor for 30 years, feared that suspicion was "weighing on the village" of around 600 residents. He suggested the killer might still be in town. He said: "The most probable [lines of inquiry] involve people we know. It's the most obvious." Since his release after questioning, Guerrier, originally from Paris, has kept a low profile. He previously spent some years working in England as an IT executive. The woman who had fallen in love with him, 69-year-old retired carer Autefort, has not been seen in Trémolat since her two days of questioning. Cops are said to have taken statements from over 200 people and scoured fields and woods near the Carter home for clues as well as the murder weapon. 11 11 11 Karen also reportedly told fellow ex-pat pal Beverley Needham she was sealing a divorce from Alan - just one day before her murder. Beverley told The Telegraph that, over dinner the night before the murder, she asked Karen: "Have you served the papers?", to which she replied: "Yes, I gave him the papers." The friend continued: '[Karen] told me the relationship was over and said: 'I'm done' [...] That was her words. She said: 'I'm done.'' Beverley, who was brokering the sale of a cottage to Karen, said the estranged couple saw each other only occasionally, but that the toll of the divorce seemed to weigh heavily on her friend. Alan was said to have denied that he and Karen were divorcing, but said his wife's secret romance with Guerrier left him with "a sense of betrayal". Karen was found in her driveway dying from eight injuries to her 'chest, groin, arm and leg'. An autopsy revealed the mum was killed "as she tried to defend herself from a frenzied attack". Another theory amongst the village is that an escaped inmate from a prison 7.5 miles away, which houses mentally ill patients, could have randomly ambushed Karen. The cold-blooded murder has rocked the tight-knit village community - who all appear dumbfounded. 11 Emma Rathbone, 45, said: 'She was absolutely lovely. She was at the centre of the village. Everybody knew her. "If you were new to the village she would be the first who would make you feel welcome. 'You can see how beautiful the village is. It's like heaven. You don't expect something like that to happen to somebody so lovely.' Charity worker Adrian Carter, who has had a house in the village for a decade, said: 'She was really, really lovely. She was bubbly and a friendly to everyone - both French and English and any other nationalities who were here. 'I was shocked, really really shocked. Genuinely, you would say it's safe. 'Knowing that someone has now been arrested make me feel a little bit safer. 'It's such a sleepy place. It's not like a Midsomer Murders sort of place.' Karen's husband Alan, who remains at the couple's home in East London, South Africa, expressed shock and surprise at revelations that his wife had "started a relationship" with another man. Karen and Alan had owned their holiday home in Trémolat for 15 years, splitting time between France and South Africa, where Alan still works. Speaking from their home in South Africa, Carter said he learned of his wife's death via a Facebook post read by a cousin who also lives in Trémolat. "She phoned me [...] to say she's sorry to tell me and that she thinks Karen has died. That was the first I heard about it," he said. "No one had got in touch with me at all to let me know what had happened. I found out through my cousin who happened to see it on a Facebook page." The former London Stock Exchange worker, 65, described her as "such a decent, lovely person", and told of the family's shock. He said his wife of 30 years was an outgoing, friendly person who "wouldn't hurt a fly", and said her death has been "traumatic" for his family. Karen had lived in Trémolat for more than a decade, where she ran two holiday rental homes. She volunteered at Village Café alongside Guerrier and Autefort, which now hangs a photograph of the late mum and wife while her killer remains at large.
