A man who piloted 11 asylum seekers across the Channel inside an inflatable dinghy then claimed he was a youth “lost track of his age.”

Issa Al Tamimi, 20, admitted helping steer the RHIB across the world’s busiest shipping lane after landing in Dungeness in March.

The Kuwait national, who pleaded guilty to illegally facilitating entrance into the UK earlier this year, told Canterbury Crown Court he was aged just 17.

But a judge ruled on Friday he was roughly 20 years old following blood test results and an hour-long cross-examination.

The probe came as part of a fact-finding mission designed to ensure he was handed an accurate sentence, in line with government guidelines.

Al Tamimi told judge Mark Weekes he was 17, could not read and write and was sent to the UK for a prosperous life, while giving evidence during a Newton Hearing.

He described how his impoverished parents raised him and a sibling on a family friend's farm within a northern province of the middle eastern country.

Asked whether he had official documentation proving his age, Al Tamimi said: “No, if I did I would provide it to you.”

Al Tamimi added he is part of a society known as ‘Bedoons’, Kuwait inhabitants rendered stateless, and missing papers were commonplace within his community.

With the help of an interpreter, Al Tamimi denied telling Border Force officials he was over 18 following his arrest in Spring: “I told them I’m 17 years old because that is my real age.”

Unable to read and write, Al Tamimi explained his mum helped him keep track of his age and described how he could only remember his 14th and 15th birthdays, where the family celebrated with cake.

He described being sent to Europe aged 16: “I passed through Turkey and Greece by walking with a friend of my father’s”, he said.

“How long were you travelling with this friend of your father’s through Europe?” prosecutor Richard Sedgwick asked.

“I was staying with a family in Greece, I spent about a year and a half there, they are known to my father, my father asked them to let me live with them.”

He added his father’s friend paid “a lot of money” to help him travel through Europe on foot, then eventually to Dungeness where he landed with Kuwaitis, Pakistanis and Saudi Arabians.

“Can you read and write?” Judge Mark Weekes asked.

“No,” he replied.

“How can you tell what the date is then?” the judge asked.

“I did a course in Greece,” he replied.”

The court heard UK medical tests predicted Al Tamimi to be around 21 and between 18 and 24, with Judge Weekes placing him at 20.

The judge described how Al Tamimi had likely “lost the track of time” while travelling around Europe for a number of years, likely mistaking his own age given his problems with literacy.

He told Al Tamimi there was “no evidence he organised” the crossing but “didn’t particularly need to come to the country.”

“You had choices and it was down to you to withdraw from this dangerous sailing,” he added.

But the judge accepted mitigation surrounding Al Tamimi’s youth, previous good character and “isolation while incarcerated both from family and linguistically.”

Al Tamimi was sentenced to 13 months in a Young Offender’s Institute, with the Secretary of State considering him for deportation on release.

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