FOUR illegal immigrants seeking refuge in Swindon were picked up by police on Saturday after they emerged from a lorry at a depot in the town.

The African men, aged between 19 and 37, were spotted fleeing a lorry which had travelled across Europe to the MAN Truck & Bus UK depot in Frankland Road, Blagrove.

A call was made from MAN to Wiltshire Police at 11.07am on Saturday with sightings of the men, who had hitched a ride to the town on the vehicle, thought to have travelled from Bulgaria or Germany.

Officers were quickly deployed to the site and found the immigrants on the footpath to Mannington, which runs parallel to Great Western Way.

Three men from Eritrea aged 37, 26 and 19 and a 30-year-old man from Sudan were detained at Gablecross police station until the early hours of yesterday morning.

They are now in the custody of UK Visas and Immigration officers.

A spokeswoman for Wiltshire Police said: “Wiltshire Police were called to Blagrove, Swindon, on Saturday, June 27 to reports of suspected illegal immigrants leaving the back of a lorry.

“Officers attended the scene and four males were arrested on suspicion of entering the UK without leave.

“They were all taken to the custody unit at Gablecross police station.

“The UK Border Agency has now taken over the investigation.

“These people take great risks to enter the UK, but they have to be dealt with appropriately.”

A spokeswoman for MAN Truck & Bus UK said: “Working within the transport industry, we take these matters extremely seriously and we were pleased to help the authorities on this occasion.”

The incident comes at a time when the Government is under increasing pressure to improve the security at the Channel Tunnel port in northern France.

Immigration ministers have confirmed two miles of high-security fencing will be rolled out at the port in an effort to stop thousands of illegal migrants breaking into UK-bound lorries.

On a typical day, 202 illegal immigrants are caught at the port at Calais and the tunnel terminal nearby at Coquelles.

But during the night of Wednesday to Thursday morning last week, more than 650 people were stopped attempting to break through at both ports.

In the 12 months to April this year, border authorities stopped illegal migrants trying to cross the Channel into the UK 39,000 times, more than twice the number for the previous year.

Some drivers have reported being threatened by stowaways wielding knives, while witnesses saw clandestines climb on top of trucks and cut their way through the canvas to climb inside.

Many of these people are fleeing strife-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East.