A stunned British family returned home after a 500 mile trip from France to discover an immigrant had hitched a lift – UNDERNEATH their £35,000 motorhome.
The young immigrant from Sudan later claimed he had spent four days balancing on the top of the 25-foot-long vehicle’s rear axle as it travelled back to the UK.
Lisa Patterson, husband Mick, both 50, and daughter Summer 17, spent two weeks touring France in their luxurious motorhome when they headed home.
But after parking on the driveway of their home in Colchester, Essex, they spotted a young black man emerging from the bottom of the motorhome and walking away.
Lisa stopped the young man, believed to be aged 17, before offering him mini cheddars and a bottle of Orangina.
She then called the police, who came to fetch the man and he was handed over to the Home Office.
Lisa said: “My first reaction was ‘Oh my God, where on earth have you come from?’ and he pointed to underneath the car.
“I asked him if there were anymore people under there and he just shook his head and in broken english, said ‘no, only one.’
“We had toured down the middle of France towards Spain, and then back up along the coast.
Lisa believes that the man had snuck under the motor home near Caen Ferry Port shortly before the family boarded the ferry home.
While they were parked at a supermarket nearby, she says that another man had tried to get in the the vehicle.
However the young man later insisted he had clung to the underside of the Auto-Trail Arapaho motorhome for four days.
She added: “We had stopped at a supermarket near Port Caen and had something to eat in the car park.
“Suddenly a car drove past and people pointing outside the window at our car and so we suddenly ran round to see what it was.
“When I looked, an immigrant was trying to get inside the van, we managed to pull him out.
“I do not know who he was and he left straight away but it could have been the other immigrants relative or friend.
“We think that was around the time this man got under the motor home.
“When we got to the port we had a little walk, then the next morning moved to a site two hours away.”
The family then boarded the ferry later that day and travelled back to the UK.
They went through immigration at Port of Dover and travelled back to their Essex home and the man went undetected.
She said: “We looked outside and there was a black man walking down the street. We live in the sticks and no-one walks down here. I ran out and called him over.
“He was a really nice person from the English he spoke.”
Realising that he was probably very hungry and thirsty, Lisa offered the man the popular French drink, Orangina and mini cheddars.
She added: “He said he was from Sudan; I was so shocked. I asked him to show me where he had been and he went back under and showed me, he had been balancing across the back axle.
“I asked how long he had been there and he
