DRIVERS working for a North-East haulier who have been caught up in the continuing migrant crisis in Calais have been threatened with knives and iron bars.

John Davison, owner of Katem Logistics, in Spennymoor, County Durham, whose firm does up to 15 runs each way to the continent via Calais and back each week, said migrants were causing a “nightmare” for its drivers.

Today (Friday) it emerged the Government’s emergency Cobra committee had discussed the “nuclear option” of closing the Channel Tunnel, which connects England and France.

The disclosure came after a suspected illegal immigrant from Sudan walked nearly the entire length of the 31 mile long Chunnel before being held by British border officers.

Explaining what his drivers had encountered, Mr Davison said: “They’ve had excrement thrown at them, been threatened with knives and iron bars and attacked.

“These people are like locusts. They are so desperate to get to Britain, they think it is some kind of Eldorado.”

Mr Davison said a common tactic used by people trying to cross the English Channel illegally was to jump onto lorries from bridges and use knives to rip open lorry sheets in order to smuggle themselves on board.

However he said only “very rarely” had migrants made it back to England in one of the firm’s trucks without being apprehended first on the French side.

He added: “In my view the French want rid of these people and that is why they have only taken limited action. Our politicians also seem weak in trying to control the problem. They need to cut the welfare and if you cannot speak English you don’t come in.”

Asked what the financial impact on Katem had been, Mr Davison said: “Thousands. But we have got a good business and we can cope with the losses. It is just more annoying than anything.”

In another incident revealed by the company, one of its drivers was gassed and had to be taken to be hospital after his truck was broken into as he slept.

Mr Davison’s daughter Katie, a transport manager for Katem, again blamed migrants for the incident which occurred in Northern France, although not at Calais.

She said: “They were trying to get his passport.

“Our drivers are taking their lives into their hands. These migrants are lawless and they don’t have any respect at all for anyone.”

David Allinson, a director of George Allinson Transport, based on Darlington’s Faverdale Industrial Estate, said it too was losing money as a result of the Calais chaos, although its problem was trucks stuck at the English side.

He said: “We don’t send our vehicles across the Channel, but we do have vehicles in Kent on a daily basis delivering products for customers and the disruption down there is causing delays.

“We call it downtime – when our lorries are stood still in traffic it costs us money.”