A pregnant mother-of-four has been found guilty of trying to smuggle 12 Vietnamese migrants into the UK.

Katy Bethel, 28, and then-partner Aaron Harris were arrested in July 2015 after UK border officers stopped their vehicle at the Coquelles’ Eurotunnel check-in.

The officers were searching the pair’s borrowed Mercedes Sprinter van when they spotted a pair of legs sticking out from a pile of tyres at the back.

Among the group of 12 illegal immigrants were four men, five women and three minors.

Bethel, who was six months pregnant with her youngest daughter, told the officers the two were heading across the Channel for a day-trip to the beach.

At Maidstone Crown Court, the jury heard that during the four hours the couple were in France, they sent and received 67 messages and calls to and from an unknown number.

The pair were returning from Calais to Folkestone when they were stopped by customs officers.

Bethel, from Kent, claimed she had no idea the migrants were in the vehicle.

“I felt sick, I was tired and obviously pregnant. When I’m tired I don’t take much notice of what is going on around me,” she told the court.

Bethel was a front passenger while Harris, her boyfriend and father of two of her children, was driving.

Bethel was today found guilty of assisting unlawful immigration.

Harris had previously pleaded guilty to the charge.

The pair will be sentenced on September 11, with Bethel granted conditional bail.