Despite the shock and horror, less than 36 hours after the discovery, as little as six bunches were laid at the site of the mass murder - something we stepped in to change, calling for residents to join us in laying flowers at the scene. [56] Bail was refused on 30 April. Communicating on the messaging app Viber, Phong agreed to arrange the trip for Witness X for 13,000. [73][74], In January 2021, an extradition hearing was held at Westminster Magistrates' Court for a Vietnamese man, said to be aged 18, who appeared via videolink from HM Prison Wandsworth accused of transporting 10 of the 39 from a safehouse in Anderlecht. The stories of the 39 show their journeys from Vietnam were often done in stages. 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. 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. Eleven of the victims - believed to be Chinese nationals - were taken by ambulance from . Matthew Long, deputy director of National Crime Agency, said the whole idea of some kind of special service was a con. On Saturday afternoon, Essex Police provided a fresh update revealing at the 25-year-old lorry driver had now been charged. The trial exposed for the first time a complex and lucrative operation which has for years illegally brought Vietnamese people into the UK. He had seen a friend's Facebook post showing that they had made it to London. He also denied conspiring to assist unlawful immigration over the same period, but did not enter any plea regarding 39 charges of manslaughter with which he was charged. Four people received a custodial sentence of at least 13 years. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Detectives believe the vehicle was travelling from Bulgaria and entered the UK three days ago via Holyhead in north Wales, one of the main port for ferries from Ireland. All of the others convicted were Vietnamese or Belgians of Vietnamese origin and were accused of buying supplies for the migrants, transporting them in taxis or acting as look-outs at safe houses. Post-mortem examinations found they died of overheating and a lack of oxygen. The cars collecting the people inside the lorry drove away from the scene. Some of the victims reassured their anxious families that they had paid extra for a so-called VIP journey to the UK which meant the lorry driver was helping them to cross the border, and there was no need for them to break into vehicles and stow themselves away. One of them, a man known to the court only as Witness X, gave evidence at the Old Bailey. [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". Many of the 28 men, eight women and three boys found dead in the trailer were in Paris the day before their deaths. [4][14], The ambulance service said that all 39 people were dead before it arrived, and attempts at resuscitation could not be made. [12], On 23 October 2019, shortly after 01:40 BST, staff of the East of England Ambulance Service responding to a 999 call made by the driver, Maurice Robinson, who found 39 bodies in a refrigerated articulated lorry. Essex lorry deaths: CCTV shows arrival at industrial park A spokesman for the Bulgarian foreign affairs ministry said the truck was registered in the country under the name of a company. He described how he desperately searched for "signs of life", a pulse or a breath. A port worker who drove the trailer off the ship later reported noticing a pungent smell that was "similar to waste". They're not breathing.". gigs and tours harry styles; ozuna and karol g kissing; thayers witch hazel original vs unscented Sense of injustice lingers after Seoul Halloween crush, Chess gets a risqu makeover. So he did.". 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. The driver of the trailer spoke only to hurry them along, Witness X told the court. Eight women and 31 men were sealed inside the vehicle for at least 12 hours as temperatures reached an "unbearable" 38.5C (101F). [78] Prosecutors are considering charges against a further three people. It was a shock, like anybody would be shocked to see this, particularly down a lane people would not know," Ms Andrews told the Old Bailey. The trial focused on four people-smuggling runs by the gang in the space of just a fortnight in October 2019 which, if they had all been successful, would have brought more than 80 Vietnamese migrants into the UK and netted the organisers 800,000. [44] On 20 April 2020, one of the brothers, a 40-year-old man, was arrested by Garda in the Republic of Ireland on a European Arrest Warrant and charged with 39 counts of manslaughter and immigration offences. [98] After confirmation that they were all from Vietnam, the Vietnamese government strongly condemned human trafficking and called on all countries to combat such activities to prevent a recurrence of the incident. Nica flew out of the country the next day. Speculation was rife as drips of information were fed through, clarified and confirmed while politicians stepped in to comment on the deadly discovery. In the days after the news broke, Waterglade Industrial Estate was swarmed by police, forensics and press. Someone said he should go to the UK. [63], On 17 June 2021 a Vietnamese man who is being sought by Belgian authorities for extradition in connection with the deaths was arrested at a supermarket petrol station in Middlesbrough. All you have to do is to click here and type in your email address. A number of the migrants discovered in France were later found dead inside the container in Essex. I want to come back to my family. [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. In his evidence, Nica said Robinson told him: "I have a problem here - dead bodies in the trailer.". It was accepted he was not a member of the organised crime group behind the smuggling operation. [60] In March 2021, the man appeared in court again accused by Belgian authorities of being a member of a criminal organisation, being involved in human trafficking and using forged documents. [71][72] Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, of Tilbury, and Gazmir Nuzi, of Tottenham, also pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful immigration in June and September 2020 respectively. On the morning of October 23, 2019, the bodies of 39 Vietnamese men, women and children were discovered dead in the back of a lorry in Grays, Essex. "On that boat in the night, there was no-one to hear them and no-one to help them. 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. He was accused of "conspiracy to facilitate the commission of a breach of UK immigration law by a non-EU person". "We thought maybe someone had broken into a lorry, but it's just awful. He persuaded them, saying he would only have to pay the 10,500 fee due to the people smugglers after he had arrived in the UK. Recordings from some of the victims' final desperate phone messages were played aloud in court. 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. First to the scene were paramedics from the East of England Ambulance Service, who were praised by chief executive Dorothy Hosein for their "incredible professionalism in very difficult circumstances". In a tweet published shortly before 10.30am Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "Im appalled by this tragic incident in Essex. "I am receiving regular updates from the Home Office & will work closely with Essex Police as we establish exactly what has happened. 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. [89], In October 2021, the BBC broadcast the hour-long documentary Hunting the Essex Lorry Killers. Numbers of Vietnamese people reported as potential human trafficking victims in the past three years. Lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 24, also from Northern Ireland, who collected the migrants in northern France and drove the container to Zeebrugge, was found guilty of people-smuggling and 39 counts of manslaughter in December. Essex lorry deaths: Trafficking ringleader jailed for 15 years after 39 died from suffocation and hyperthermia, The 39 people whose bodies were discovered in a lorry in Grays, Essex, in October 2019. In the CNN report, this question was described to be "about the possibility of Chinese citizens being illegally trafficked" and "was rebuffed by the spokesperson". Sign up here. 7th March 2020. [77], On 11 January 2021, Gazmir Nuzi was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment after admitting a limited role in the smuggling ring, with the prosecution accepting that he was not part of the organised crime group. [82], UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a tweet that he was "appalled" at the incident, giving his thoughts to the victims and their families, adding that the Home Office was working alongside Essex Police on the case. [33], On 24 October, the Evening Standard speculated that the trailer had travelled from the Netherlands before its departure from Belgium. Read about our approach to external linking. Sentencing, Mr Justice Sweeney said: "I have no doubt that the conspiracy was a sophisticated, long-running and profitable one to smuggle mainly Vietnamese people across the channel.". Crammed into the back of Robinson's lorry were two cousins who were more than 6,000 miles (9,656km) from home. The offence allegedly occurred between May 2018 and October 2019. The crime scene is just a short distance from intu Lakeside shopping centre and the M25 Dartford Crossing. What happened in the Ukraine helicopter crash? Essex Police said the people were all pronounced dead at the scene in an industrial park in Grays, east of London. [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. 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. We were struggling to give our children a proper education. [24][25] By 7 November, all of the deceased had been formally identified. Those inside had stripped to their underwear in the sweltering heat and tried to bash their way out of the trailer's roof. 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. During the lengthy court cases at the Old Bailey in London, shocking details from the tragedy were uncovered. Who was Ukrainian minister Denys Monastyrsky? [45], On 1 November, a man from Northern Ireland was re-arrested in the holding cells of the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin following the execution of a European Arrest Warrant issued in the UK. They had been working legally as fruit pickers in Hungary when they phoned their families in Vietnam to tell them there had been a change in plan and they would soon be travelling to the UK. Have a good life.". He had wanted to give his wife and three children a better life. A man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after being convicted in a Belgian court of being the ringleader in the trafficking of 39 migrants whose bodies were found inside a lorry in the UK. Nguyen Van Hung's mother, Pham Thi Lan, agreed. This means that we may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. "Many people around here go overseas to find work. While the county came to terms with the tragedy on our doorstep, Essex Police launched the largest investigation in its history to bring down members of the international smuggling operation responsible for their deaths. [11] The police suspect that an Irish people-smuggling ring which has been under investigation for around a year might be involved. He said the victims died in an "unimaginable way, because of the utter greed of these criminals". [69] Judge Burns remanded the accused until 12 June 2020, when Ireland's High Court ordered his extradition to the UK. The families of the victims who lost their lives continue to mourn their losses, with many still struggling with the debts of the money they spent in search of a better life. Each passenger paid smugglers between 10,000 and 13,000 to be brought from northern France. 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. Have a good life., In the background, a voice could be heard pleading: Come on everyone. [85], Extra UK immigration officers are to be deployed at the Belgian border port of Zeebrugge and more Border Force staff will operate at Purfleet as a result of the incident. A National Crime Agency spokesman said that the individual was "suspected by the Belgian authorities of having played a key role in placing at least 10 migrants inside that lorry. We knew people who had already made the journey. "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.". 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