A teenage asylum seeker who piloted a dinghy packed with scores of other migrants across the Channel was jailed in the UK on Friday for a new offence aimed at helping curb the crossings.
Chan Atak, 19, from South Sudan, was jailed for two years and three months at Canterbury Crown Court in southeast England for endangering others during a sea crossing.
It became a crime under a law that entered into force in January, as the British government grapples with how to stop tens of thousands of asylum seekers crossing the Channel annually on the flimsy vessels.
Prior to that, other offences under older laws, such as assisting unlawful immigration, were used to prosecute migrants who helped navigate small boats.
Atak had last month admitted the offence, with the boat he steered on July 23 carrying 165 migrants -- a record high number at the time for a Channel crossing.
The court heard it had two outboard engines but one was not functioning, while tubing on the boat had started to deflate.
Prosecutor James Harrison said aerial footage showed Atak operating the boat for 90 minutes before he later attempted to "avoid detection as the helmsman" by removing the jacket he had been wearing.
Defending him, lawyer Audrey Mogan urged the court to take into account his young age, having turned 19 the month before the crossing occurred.
She described Atak as someone who had "escaped the horrors of South Sudan", where he saw militia set fire to a neighbourhood, people shot and their throats slashed.
But handing down the sentence, judge Sarah Counsell told the teen he had played an "important role" in controlling and navigating the vessel, arguing it was not "fleeting or incidental involvement".
As a foreign national, Atak could be liable in principle to automatic deportation back to his country, the court also heard.
In June, another judge sentenced the first two people -- a 32-year-old Afghan and Sudanese national aged 27 -- convicted of the new endangerment offence, jailing them each for at least two years.