The victims were 28 men, eight women and three children, two of them aged 15. A cloud of steam that emerged from the trailer, caught on CCTV, spoke volumes of the heat that was still inside the trailer, the judge said. "He said he would not go in a container lorry and that it needed to be safe, even though the truck option was a lot cheaper.". Ronan Hughes, 41, who ran a haulage company and organised the lorries and drivers to transport the migrants, was sentenced to 20 years at the Old Bailey on Friday. [11][12], On 2 November, police clarified they were all Vietnamese. [86], Campaigners against human trafficking organised a vigil to take place outside the Home Office on 24 October in solidarity with the casualties. [37] On 27 October, it was announced that these three had been released on bail. [60], On 17 March 2021 a 23-year-old haulier from Caledon, County Tyrone was charged with conspiracy to assist illegal immigration in connection with the deaths. Maurice Robinson, 26, the lorry driver from Northern Ireland who collected the container containing the 39 people from the port in Essex in October 2019, and also pleaded guilty last year to manslaughter and people-smuggling, was sentenced to 13 years and four months. [66] He was remanded in custody until 13 December when he appeared in court, via a video link from Belmarsh Prison in London where he was being held until his trial. Inside was an almost unimaginable sight: 39 people, 10 of them teenagers, were dead. Crammed into the back of Robinson's lorry were two cousins who were more than 6,000 miles (9,656km) from home. Every person in that trailer had left behind a family. [40] He was remanded in custody, to appear at the Central Criminal Court on 25 November. RM GA0448 - A police officer at the scene of a shooting at Rayleigh railway station in Essex, after a member of the public was shot armed robbers today. Christopher Kennedy, 24, another lorry driver from Northern Ireland who was involved in earlier people-smuggling runs bringing Vietnamese migrants from Northern Ireland, was sentenced to seven years. The court heard Robinson - who discovered the bodies after collecting the trailer when it arrived in Purfleet, Essex - had received a message from Hughes which read: "Give them air quickly, don't let them out.". Belgian officials said the eight women . After several months in Poland, he made the journey to France with his heart set on making it across the channel to the UK. They were both 35. 2023 BBC. So he did.". During the trial, jurors were given a snapshot of the victims - who included a bricklayer, a university graduate and a nail bar technician - and their dreams of a better life. Sense of injustice lingers after Seoul Halloween crush, Chess gets a risqu makeover. Robinson, of Craigavon, County Armagh, returned to his cab before driving off and making his first call to Hughes. [66][67] On 8 April 2020, he pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of the 39 victims. Christopher Kennedy, 24, from County Armagh, was jailed for seven years; Valentin Calota, 38, of Birmingham, for four-and-a-half years; and Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 28, of Hobart Road, Tilbury, Essex, was given a three-year sentence. [49][50] In February 2020 five men and two women were charged in Vietnam with "organising or broking others to flee abroad or stay abroad illegally". Numbers of Vietnamese people reported as potential human trafficking victims in the past three years. Eamonn Harrison, a lorry driver from Northern Ireland, who dropped the trailer off at Zebrugge, and Gheorghe Nica, the coordinator of the smuggling operation, from Romania, were found guilty of manslaughter. "He told me that he would only go on a 'VIP package', in a private car," she said. Signing up to the newsletter is simple. They are believed to have been either victims of human trafficking (for example, as forced labourers), migrants who paid smugglers to move them to the United Kingdom, or both. Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Stoten, who led the investigation, described how one single fingerprint found in another one of Hughes' lorries was "gold dust", leading to another man who made the same journey a week before. ", Get email updates with the day's biggest stories. When Robinson stopped on a nearby industrial estate, he found that the migrants were all dead. ", "Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying's Regular Press Conference on October 25, 2019", Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, "CNN slammed for rushing to attack China in report of UK lorry death", "China says identity of victims still being confirmed", "PM orders investigation into overseas trafficking of Vietnamese citizens", "Essex lorry deaths: Vietnam condemns 'human trafficking', "Vietnam offers loans to families to return bodies", "Vietnam offers grieving families loans to return bodies", "Fundraisers help send Vietnam's lorry dead home", "Essex lorry deaths: All victims' bodies back in Vietnam", Young Vietnamese workers risking life and death on 'the line' to Europe, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_lorry_deaths&oldid=1120801721, October 2019 events in the United Kingdom, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 8 November 2022, at 22:09. [69] The counsel for the state pointed out that the 39 people died after the trailer had entered the UK and that it was nonsensical to suggest their deaths had occurred anywhere other than the UK. [28], On 29 October, Essex Police announced that two brothers from Armagh, Northern Ireland, one of whom owned the haulage company operating the lorry cab detained at Grays, were wanted on suspicion of manslaughter and human trafficking offences related to the incident. Later, before the trailer was loaded on to a ferry, the driver had opened the doors and told them to "keep quiet all the time" and stand in the middle of the trailer and hold on to each other. [19][20], Initially the police said the deceased were all Chinese nationals and the Chinese embassy in London sent officials to assist with identification. He was returned to the UK where he was charged with 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration. Two ringleaders receive sentences of 27 and 20 years after 39 Vietnamese people suffocated in container. Someone said he should go to the UK. On 11 October, about 15 migrants made the journey across the channel, though in a different trailer to the one in which the 39 died. [59], On 15 December 2020, a Vietnamese man who was believed to have been involved in transporting 10 of the 39 migrants from a safehouse in Anderlecht was arrested in Redditch by National Crime Agency officers on a European Arrest Warrant issued by a Belgian judge. THE 39 migrants who died in the back of a lorry trailer in Essex left bloody handprints on the inside doors of the metal container, it has been reported. However the involvement of the lorry drivers offered them no protection when too many people were packed into one container. [3] Refrigerated trailers can be kept airtight and frozen to preserve perishables, which could lead to an occupant dying of suffocation or hypothermia should they become trapped inside. Read about our approach to external linking. "On that boat in the night, there was no-one to hear them and no-one to help them. ", Cousins Hoang Van Tiep (left), 18, and Nguyen Van Hung, 33, died together in the container, Both Maurice Robinson (left) and Ronan Hughes admitted 39 counts of manslaughter in connection with the case, After receiving this message from his boss, Robinson got out of his cab, opened the trailer door and discovered the bodies, Gheorghe Nica, Eamonn Harrison and Christopher Kennedy were all part of the people-smuggling conspiracy, Ronan Hughes (left) was captured on CCTV meeting Gheorghe Nica at a hotel, Twelve days before 39 people were found dead in the back of a lorry, the same cab was seen repeatedly in a country lane in Orsett, Essex, This is the moment Maurice Robinson opened the trailer door and discovered the bodies inside was captured on CCTV, A relative paid tribute to Bui Thi Nhung as families mourned the deaths of the 39 people. On 23 October 2019, the bodies of 39 Vietnamese people 31 men and 8 women were found in the trailer of an articulated refrigerator lorry in Grays, Essex, United Kingdom. Essex lorry deaths: Men jailed for killing 39 migrants in trailer 22 January 2021 Essex lorry deaths The 39 people who died in the back of a trailer as it crossed the North Sea between. A father of one of the deceased said he was given two options: having the ashes returned for 41,100,000 Vietnam dong (1,470) or receiving the body for 66,240,000 Vietnam dong (2,209). [67], On 15 May 2020 Ronan Hughes, the man accused of being a ringleader, attended the High Court in Ireland by video link from Cloverhill Prison in Dublin. The trial examined three smuggling attempts by the gang - two that were successful on 11 and 18 October, and the final trip on 23 October. As they began to die inside the dark container, where the temperature had risen to 38.5C, they recorded farewell messages for their relatives. Recordings from some of the victims' final desperate phone messages were played aloud in court. This article does contains many crime scene photos, as well as the group's strangely joyful exit interview video which was shot just before their deaths, Applewhite's final video, a house tour while the bodies were still inside, and an interview with a surviving member who does show a video of the cult going about their daily routines. ", Justice Sweeney added: "The willingness of the victims to try and enter the country illegally provides no excuse for what happened to them.". When it became obvious that there was insufficient oxygen they made desperate attempts to escape through the roof of the lorry, and tried to call emergency services in Vietnam. "Many people around here go overseas to find work. In addition, Valentin Calota from Birmingham and Christopher Kennedy, from County Armagh, were found guilty of immigration offences. A 25-year-old Vietnamese woman is believed to be among the dead after her family received a haunting series of text messages. [7][10][11], The Zeebrugge port chairman said it was "highly unlikely" the migrants entered the trailer there, and that breaking the seal, loading 39 people and resealing the trailer without being noticed would be "virtually impossible". "There is no VIP service - these are the lies people are told to be exploited," he said. He was charged with 41 offences, including 39 of manslaughter, and extradition proceedings began in the Irish High Court. Police later moved the bodies to a mortuary at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford for post-mortems to be carried out. "It was a bit of a shock but we're not 100 per cent sure of what's happened.". The journey of 23 October and the earlier failed run on 14 October were connected, said Bill Emlyn Jones, who prosecuted the case. He was later arrested in Germany. On 23 October 2019 we were called to a scene that no officer could ever have prepared for. They died excruciatingly slow deaths, the judge said, of asphyxia and hyperthermia, or overheating. Essex Police said the people were all pronounced dead at the scene in an industrial park in Grays, east of London. [57][58], On 26 May 2020 French and Belgian police announced the arrest of 26 people suspected of human trafficking in relation to the Essex lorry deaths. Maurice Robinson, of Laurel Drive in Craigavon, Nothern Ireland, was arrested on suspicion of murder shortly after the bodies were found at the Waterglade Industrial Estate. [33], On 24 October, the Evening Standard speculated that the trailer had travelled from the Netherlands before its departure from Belgium. Many of their families borrowed heavily to fund their passage, relying on their potential future earnings once they got into the UK. The court heard some of their final desperate phone messages, including one where a man spoke with ragged breaths as he apologised to his family. He slowly brought the lorry to a stop at the industrial estate, got out of the cab and opened the trailer door. Maurice Robinson, who collected the trailer from Purfleet and discovered the dead bodies, was sentenced to 13 years and 4 months. They had been promised safe passage to our shores and they were lied to. The trailer had been shipped from the port of Zeebrugge, Belgium, to Purfleet, Essex, UK, and the lorry cab and its driver are believed to have originated from Northern Ireland. He described how he desperately searched for "signs of life", a pulse or a breath. 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