Footage shows dozens of migrants waiting waist-deep in the sea for the smuggling gangs who are tasked with ferrying them across the Channel.

Extraordinary scenes showed dozens of French police and coastguards looking on as men and some women crammed onto an overloaded boat off Gravelines beach.

The group, which included children, were being taken towards Dover in a bid to enter French soil undetected.

They are being launched from new sites and in new ways - out of reach of French police.

Footage shows dozens of migrants waiting waist-deep in the sea for the smuggling gangs who are tasked with ferrying them across the Channel.

A French police officer was seen single-handedly foiling an attempt by a group of people to cross the English Channel this morning in a dinghy by stabbing the inflated boat with a…