Channel rescuers accused of manslaughter in migrant deaths

A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, by the RNLI, in November (Gareth Fuller/PA)

The Paris prosecutor’s office has said it has received a manslaughter lawsuit for failure to help in the tragic capsizing last month of a boat in the Channel that cost the lives of at least 27 people trying to reach Britain.

The manslaughter lawsuit, filed on Friday by the French humanitarian organisation Utopia 56, accuses the maritime prefect of the Channel and North Sea, the Regional Operational Centre for Surveillance and Rescue of Gris-Nez in the Pas-de-Calais and the British Coastguard of not doing enough to prevent the deaths.