An asylum seeker who piloted a boat in the English Channel where four passengers drowned has not been successful in a bid to bring a challenge against his convictions and sentence.

Ibrahima Bah was convicted of manslaughter and of facilitating a breach of UK immigration law and sentenced to nine and a half years’ detention in February, after steering the dinghy in an attempted crossing in December 2022.

During a retrial at Canterbury Crown Court, Bah said smugglers threatened to kill him if he did not drive the boat, but the prosecution said he was not telling the truth.

At the Court of Appeal earlier, Bah did not get the green light to bring his challenge.

Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said Bah could not bring the appeal, ruling it was not “arguable”.

Richard Thomas KC, for Bah, previously described his trial as “touching on a highly politicised issue which gives rise to very strong feelings”.

Jurors heard the home-built, low-quality inflatable dinghy should have had no more than 20 people on board, but carried about 45 people in the English Channel that night.

Mr Thomas told the Court of Appeal it had been a “joint endeavour” to travel to the UK.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) opposed the appeal bid.

Duncan Atkinson KC, for the CPS, previously said: “This is a case where the passengers on the boat were acting in concert with their pilot.”

He added: “It was not the background or the scene setting, it was the continued act of facilitation at the time of their deaths which provided the circumstances in which the deaths occurred.”

Thirty nine survivors were brought to the Port of Dover after a UK fishing boat came across the sinking dinghy.

They were helped by the RNLI, air ambulance and UK Border Force.

Three of those who died were known only as unknown male persons.

The fourth person was named as Hajratullah Ahmadi, a 31-year-old man who had come from Afghanistan.