'I hold my hands up, I'm guilty' - Yorkshire father on why he tried to smuggle Afghan refugee child to Leeds

Father Rob Lawrie is in a uniquely powerful position. It’s a position he’d rather not be in, but the carpet fitter from Yorkshire, with a move made after barely a moment’s thought, became the human face of Britain’s battle over child refugees.

In a split-second decision, he had agreed in October 2015 to try and smuggle a young Afghan refugee from the Calais Jungle to her family in Leeds.

He failed and, caught up in the political storm he had unwittingly created, he was hailed both a hero and a villain by the world’s media with his story splashed across every front page.

There were death threats, an impending divorce, and the weight of a prison sentence hanging over him.

But a year on, with a movie in the making, he hopes to use his name to highlight the plight of child refugees such as young Bahar Ahmadi, so that others won’t have to go through what she did.

“I don’t recognise any law that says any child has to live like an animal,” he said, looking back at the day that he agreed to let four-year-old Bahar, whom he called Bru, climb into his van.

“I don’t recognise any law that tells me it’s illegal to help another human being, if that help comes the heart.

“I know what I did. I hold my hands up, I’m guilty. And I’m sorry for my family, but I’m not sorry for the focus it brought to child refugees.”

Mr Lawrie, in an interview in Saturday’s edition of The Yorkshire Post, opened up about the journey which led him to Bru, a young child fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan.

He had met her and her father Reze in the Calais Jungle, and, over time, had been begged many times to take the four-year-old to her aunt in Leeds. But it wasn’t until October 24, the night of the Red Moon, that he eventually agreed to try.

“That night Bru, as she did every night, came and sat on my knee,” the 51-year-old said. “She fell asleep. I looked down and I just thought ‘stuff this’.

“I was going home that night. It was 10.30pm, and I was on the midnight ferry. I’d be in Leeds by 5am.

“I was getting a little girl out of hell and home to her family. I felt I was doing the right thing. I didn’t know I had castaways.”

Earlier that day Mr Lawrie had been loading his van with unwanted clothes which could be sold back in England at cash for clothes stores.

The group had formed a human chain to load the bags into the back and, unbeknownst to him, two Eritraen men had buried themselves beneath the bags.

“They were laying under there for all that time,” he said. “How I wasn’t done for manslaughter I don’t know.”

As it was, he made it to the British border before being stopped. Sniffer dogs caught the scent and, mystified, Mr Lawrie was told to start emptying the back of the van, bag by bag.

“I was just trying to be quiet, so I didn’t wake Bru,” he said. “In my head I’m begging her not to start crying. And then I pick up a shoe, and I look up, and there’s these eyes staring at me. It’s a man. ‘Are we in England?’ he asks.”

Within another 15 minutes, he’s found the other man hiding under the pile of clothes.

“I was gutted,” he said. “There was no way I would have agreed to take a four year old child to her family in Leeds, and then two random men from Eritrea.”

Mr Lawrie, stunned, was handcuffed and placed under arrest. And he was on his way to the Coquelles Detention Centre.

“That’s when I said ‘you’d better go back. There’s a girl in my van. Straight away the alarms started going off, sirens everywhere. It was like I was the devil.”

In the days that followed, he could hear the guards whispering “seven to 10 years”, and he knew they were talking about how long he would be sent to jail for. His heart went cold. “I can laugh about it now, but I wasn’t then,” he said.

Back in the UK, he was at a loss. He’d been advised to take media coverage into his own hands, rather than risk a free-for-all, so he opened up about what had happened.

But his marriage was falling apart. Within three months, he had lost his wife of 14 years. He dropped four stone in weight. The stress of waiting was taking its toll.

And when the time came for his court appearance, while he had one of France’s top barristers prepared to act in his defence, he was up against the country’s chief prosecutor.

Warned to expect a sentence of five years in prison or a £20,000 fine, he went in armed with a petition signed by 200,000 people and, with no work and no money, was wearing a £10 suit he had bought from a charity shop in Otley.

“I was Marmite,” he said. “Some people thought I was a horror, others wanted to string me up. I had death threats. Someone spent an awful lot of time detailing in a YouTube video how I should be killed. My worry was my children. I could survive.”

On the day of his hearing, the court room was packed. There were journalists from all over the world, TV and documentary crews following his every move.

The hearing, he said, was like something out of a West End Show, with booing and cheers from the gallery and loud dramatic speeches he couldn’t understand a word of.

When it was adjourned, he hid in the bathrooms. And when it was announced that he would only have to pay a fine, to be waived completely if he commits no further offences, he openly wept.

“I just broke,” he said. “I went down. I thought I’d be leaving in handcuffs. I was classed as a smuggler.”

He was penniless. His business was gone, and his marriage was over. But he was allowed to go home. And a year on, he is positive about what the future holds.

He volunteers at a local soup kitchen, is in training for the London Marathon, and is in constant demand from charities asking him to give speeches and inspire others.

“I’ve a new life, he said. “Nothing surprises me now. I was happily married, with a family. Now, I live with my daughter Ruby. But I’m a happy dad.

“And yes, I would consider doing it again. But I would still rather that little girl was living in a house in Leeds with her family than where she is right now.”