Rob Lawrie is a forty-nine-year-old former British soldier and father of four. He lives in a village called Guiseley, not far from the city of Leeds. He gave up his job to travel to what the French call "la jungle de Calais" — the ghetto in which thousands of migrants are stranded, waiting to cross the Channel and reach British soil. Today he faces the prospect of imprisonment for attempting to hide an Afghan girl in his van, with the aim of smuggling her out of the camp and taking her, across the Channel, to her family.

A hell of epidemics, rape and malnutrition in Calais

Lawrie's decision to devote himself to the migrants' cause came after he saw the harrowing images of Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian child who died on a Turkish beach and whose photograph went around the world. The former soldier — who spent seven years in the army — decided to put together a group of volunteers to collect clothing and food, and then bring it to Calais.

Once on the ground, however, he discovered a living hell: "The conditions were horrific. The environment reminded me of the rubbish dumps of Bombay," he explained to the French daily Le Monde. Outbreaks of scabies, poorly treated fractures, malnutrition, women raped. Last November, the administrative court of Lille ordered the French state to act to carry out, at the very least, a census of unaccompanied minors, as well as to provide adequate drinking water, install latrines, introduce a waste disposal system and create an access route to the site for ambulances.

The horror of Calais in a video published by Rob Lawrie

To draw attention to the situation, Lawrie published a video online entitled "The Truth", made up of photographs collected during his stays in France. It was on one of his humanitarian trips that he met a little girl, Bahar Ahmadi, and her father Reza, who had fled Afghanistan after being threatened by the Taliban. Their goal was to be reunited with the rest of the family, who live legally in Leeds.

Reza, desperate, repeatedly asked Rob Lawrie to hide his daughter, just four years old, in order to get her out of the Calais Jungle and take her to her relatives in England. On 24 October the former soldier agreed: "I had always said no to him — he told the BBC. One evening, we were sitting around a campfire. I looked at Bahar sitting on my lap, and I had no more doubts."

"I couldn't leave her one more night in that place"

In an interview with the Independent he stated: "I know I have broken the law, but I couldn't leave Bahar one more night in that horrible place. After seeing a place like that, you can no longer be rational." So he hid the little girl in the van, under the driver's seat. But border police dogs discovered two Eritreans who had climbed into the back of the van without his knowledge. And they found Bahar too.

Lawrie was immediately arrested. He was then granted bail: he will be tried in Boulogne-sur-Mer on 14 January. According to an online petition launched in his favour, which has already been signed by more than one hundred thousand people, he faces up to five years in prison. "It's true," reads the document published on Change.org, "Rob did not respect the law. But is it right that he should end up in prison for such a humane act?"

Opening image: ©Mark Kerrison/Demotix/Corbis