Cases Filed After Vietnamese Immigrants Found Suffocated to Death Inside Lorry Trailer

Vietnamese immigrants died inside a refrigerated lorry trailer. According to court documents, the immigrants who were trapped inside tried to force their way out with a metal pole but sadly suffocated to death.

Smuggled immigrants

A trial is now underway after the authorities found 39 dead Vietnamese immigrants in the back of a lorry trailer parked in Essex in 2019. The scene was said to be so harrowing that the man who smuggled them into the United Kingdom could not bear to look at them.

A 23-year-old man named Eamonn Harrison and a 43-year-old woman named Gheorghe Nica were accused of killing the men, women, and children found dead inside the trailer on October 23, 2019.

Valentin Calota, 37, and Christopher Kennedy, 24, were also arrested by authorities for assisting in the global smuggling ring. The two drove the immigrants into the U.K., according to The Guardian.

The victims allegedly paid up to £10,000 each for the journey. Inside the trailer were eight women and 10 teenagers, the youngest of whom were two boys aged 15, according to the court documents.

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The prosecutors at the Old Bailey in London claimed that Harrison, a truck driver, drove the trailer to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge before it sailed onboard a cargo ship to Purfleet in Essex. It was then picked up by 26-year-old trucker Maurice Robinson from County Armagh.

According to NBC News, Robinson and his boss, 40-year-old Ronan Hughes, admitted to the 39 counts of manslaughter, which Harrison and Nica, who were said to be the ringleader, denied.

How the immigrants tried to escape

The Vietnamese immigrants tried to smash their way out of the trailer by using a metal pole, but they failed because no one heard them. Thus no one helped them. The trailer was eventually found in Grays, Essex.

Police found evidence that the victims made desperate attempts to escape while they were on the cargo ship in the middle of the night. They tried to smash their way out by using a metal pole, but to no avail.

Robinson was said to have smashed his burner phone and dumped it down a drain in an attempt to hide evidence from the police, while Nica tried to run away and hide, according to The Washington Post.

Robinson told authorities that he could not bear to look inside the trailer. He waited for more than 15 minutes after he opened up the rear doors to dial 999. He first called Hughes and Nica, according to the court.

When he finally got hold of 999 and asked for an ambulance, he was recorded saying that the immigrants were lying on the ground and that he heard a noise in the back.

In the recording, he said he is a lorry driver and that he went and lifted a trailer from Purfleet. He allegedly heard a noise in the back when he was getting ready to park up for the night, and that was when he opened the door and saw the victims lying on their backs and not breathing.