Criminal barrister Audrey Mogan has seen the Government’s small boats crackdown from inside the courtroom after representing the driver of a mega dinghy which crossed the Channel this summer.

In August, Mogan represented the driver of one of the so-called mega-dinghies which was carrying 165 people to the UK.

The man was convicted but Mogan told The i Paper the Government is targeting the wrong people and will not be able to end the crisis of small boat crossings.

“The gulf between who was actually being prosecuted and what they said they were trying to do is huge,” she said, arguing that those who are being charged under new laws are simply “low hanging fruit”.

Updated legislation which came into effect in January has also not had the complete intended effect of deterring asylum seekers and should tackle the people smuggling gangs which organise dangerous Channel crossings, she added.

In August, Mogan represented 19-year-old Chan Mathok Atak, who was sentenced to two years and three months in prison for piloting a record-breaking mega dinghy in July.

The barrister has represented several small boat migrants, and said she is increasingly concerned that the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 is being used to criminalise individual asylum seekers.

When announcing the new laws in 2025, former home secretary Yvette Cooper said they would combat “criminal smuggler and trafficking gangs”.

Last month, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood echoed the sentiment, saying “these gangs have no regard for human life”. She added government efforts to hinder the gangs are working, “making it much harder for gangs to launch vessels, forcing them to change their approach”.

But this is not the reality on the ground in UK courts, where Mogan said “people are basically being prosecuted for being asylum seekers”.

“By prosecuting individuals who are asylum seekers themselves, vulnerable individuals who are people just escaping, in Atak’s situation, a huge humanitarian crisis… it is dealing with the low hanging fruit instead of really getting to the root of the issue,” she added.

The barrister believes it is “easier” for the Government to prosecute individuals captured on camera piloting these boats, rather than “actually getting to the root of the kind of smuggling gangs, the people who are making money out of this”.

After Atak was jailed, the minister for border security and asylum, Anna Turley, called the teenager an “evil criminal”, but his barrister felt passionately that Government rhetoric like this was being used to scapegoat asylum seekers.

Mogan emphasised that the 19-year-old is “skinny, tiny” and spent much of their time together “crying because he hadn’t been able to speak to his mother”.

Why deterrents are not working

“The root of the issue really, whilst they say they want to deter, dealing with smuggling gangs is one thing, but the root of the issue is that there’s no legal, safe routes for people to come here and claim asylum,” Mogan said.

She said Atak had been forced to flee his home in South Sudan, which is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis with roving militias looking to recruit young men, where there was “violence and threats towards him”.

He went to Libya, where he “was caught by individuals and forced to work”. After escaping that, he made his way to Italy, France and ultimately the shores of Kent.

“You don’t put yourself and your children on a dinghy in water like this unless there is no safe legal way to come to the UK and claim asylum,” Mogan added.

Since the new laws came into effect in January, the UK has seen roughly 19,135 arrivals by small boat, which is down 42 per cent compared to the same period in 2025.

But Mogan argued this was not enough – numbers are still far exceeding the roughly 100 arrivals a decade ago in 2026. “It isn’t deterring individuals,” she said. “Harsher and harsher legislation has been coming into play in the past decade, but more people have been getting into the dinghies.”

“I don’t think any of these people should be prosecuted. I think the offenses are incredibly troubling when it comes to our responsibilities under the Refugee Convention.

“And we’ve just created a whole bunch of new offenses so that the government can suggest that it’s doing something about small boats without actually doing anything.”

Imran Hussain, executive director of external affairs at the Refugee Council, said: “The Government is right to go after the smuggling gangs but we are concerned that refugees themselves are being prosecuted.

“Criminalising men, women and children who have fled regimes like the Taliban and brutal conflicts like in Sudan is not going to disrupt the business model of the smuggling gangs. Jailing the victims of conflicts who are exploited or coerced by the gangs would be a miscarriage of justice.”

Hussain added the best way to tackle the gangs is to stop refugees getting into boats in the first place, “which means giving them a safe and legal way to apply for asylum in the UK”.

Endangering others at sea

When it crossed the Channel in July, Atak’s boat was the largest number of migrants brought over by boat in recent years, including 31 children on board.

In court, he admitted the charge of endangering the lives of others during a sea crossing, a new offence which the Government brought in at the beginning of the year.

When Cooper announced the new offence, she said it would “act as a deterrent to boat overcrowding and reduce further tragic loss of life among those making the perilous Channel crossings”.

But Mogan said this is not how the charge has been levied in reality. She said: “What we’ve seen is the people who have been prosecuted so far are asylum seekers, vulnerable individuals themselves, arguably the people that are suffering in the way that Yvette Cooper had mentioned.

“But because they’ve had their hand on the tiller at some point during the crossing, not throughout, but just at some point during the crossing, they are now being prosecuted under the endangering lives offences.”

In Atak’s case and others, she said, migrants are either threatened to take control of the boat, or “people who are on the boat and realize that if someone doesn’t hold on to that tiller, it’s going to capsize” and grab it out of desperation.

According to the National Crime Agency, the 14.3 metre dinghy only had one working engine and was severely overcrowded with inadequate life jackets.

But according to Mogan, Atak had no control over the overcrowding or quality of safety measures on board the vessel he was piloting.

She said prosecuting people who were trying to save themselves and others by taking control of the boat is “ridiculous”, adding they often “had no choice”.

At the time of Atak’s sentencing, Turley said: “With arrests for immigration crime surging, and the lowest number of small boat arrivals over the summer since 2020, we are making progress. We will be relentless in bearing down on these dangerous and illegal crossings.”

The Government’s most recent statement on small boats crossings said: “Crossings are down significantly, and we have just recorded the lowest number of summer arrivals since 2020.

“We are taking action, with joint efforts preventing over 48,000 crossing attempts and seizing 1,100 boats and engines since the election.”

The Home Office has been contacted for comment.