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An asylum seeker found guilty of killing four migrants who died in a boat he piloted across the English Channel has lost his bid to challenge his convictions and sentence.

Ibrahima Bah was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to nine and a half years’ detention after the deaths in the “unseaworthy” boat he steered between France and the UK on 14 December 2022.

During a retrial at Canterbury Crown Court, Bah said smugglers threatened to kill him if he did not drive the boat, but the prosecution said he was not telling the truth and he owed his fellow passengers a “duty of care” as their pilot.

The Senegalese national was also convicted of facilitating illegal entry to the UK.

At a hearing earlier this month, Bah brought his case to the Court of Appeal in a bid for the green light to challenge his convictions and sentence.

Protesters in support of Ibrahima Bah attended the previous hearing (PA Wire)

In a ruling on Wednesday, the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said Bah could not bring the appeal, ruling it was not “arguable”.

Richard Thomas KC, for Bah, previously described his trial as “touching on a highly politicised issue which gives rise to very strong feelings”.

Jurors heard that the home-built, low-quality inflatable should have had no more than 20 people on board but carried about 45 people in the English Channel that night.

Mr Thomas told the Court of Appeal in London that it had been a “joint endeavour” to travel to the UK, and that Bah’s actions “meant that a passage to the UK was available so tragically the deceased availed themselves of that passage”.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) opposed the appeal bid.

Duncan Atkinson KC, for the CPS, previously said: “This is a case where the passengers on the boat were acting in concert with their pilot.”

The barrister continued: “It was not the background or the scene setting… it was the continued act of facilitation at the time of their deaths which provided the circumstances in which the deaths occurred.”

A total of 39 survivors were brought to shore in the port of Dover after a UK fishing boat crew came across the sinking dinghy with help from the RNLI, air ambulance and UK Border Force.

Three of the people who died were known only as unknown male persons while the other man was Hajratullah Ahmadi, a 31-year-old married man who had come from Afghanistan and had a six-year-old daughter at the time of his death.

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