A couple who were fined £1,500 after reporting a boy who had stowed away on the back of their motorhome for their journey from France to Essex have had the penalty cancelled.

Adrian and Joanne Fenton, from Heybridge, were fined by the Home Office for “failing to check that no clandestine entrant was concealed” when they returned to their home across the Channel.

The stowaway had concealed himself in the bicycle rack on the outside of their vehicle as they made the six-hour journey home via the Channel tunnel from Calais.

They discovered the boy, who they were later told was a 16-year-old from Sudan, when they unzipped the bicycle rack cover, and called the police.

They later received an email telling them they were being fined by the Home Office. The department said the penalties were “designed to target negligence rather than criminality”.

Adrian Fenton said the man had travelled on the outside of the motorhome, rather than inside their vehicle, and that he had been trying to do the right thing by calling the police, writing: “At no point did I believe I would be fined by taking correct and moral action.”

The couple have now received a second email from Border Force, which is part of the Home Office, saying the fine had been reduced to zero.

Joanne Fenton told the BBC she was “ecstatic” that the penalty had been reversed. She said the experience had not put them off from taking their motorhome abroad again, but said next time they would be “ultra-careful – there’ll be no covers over the bike rack”.

Her husband said the Home Office should “be looking at their policy and make sure that it’s fit for purpose and not targeting holidaymakers”.

“We don’t want anyone else to go through what we’ve gone through,” he said.

“If someone does call the police because they’ve got someone discovered in their motorhome, Border Force shouldn’t even be considering fining them because everyone’s doing the moral and the right thing.”