Revealed, the missed chances to catch gang
POLICE and border officers missed a string of chances to stop the traffickers responsible for the deaths of 39 migrants in the back of a lorry, it can be revealed today.
Four smugglers are facing life sentences for allowing the Vietnamese stowaways to suffocate inside a sealed shipping container on a ferry bound for Britain.
One after another the migrants – who paid the traffickers up to £13,000 each – died in temperatures of 101F.
Yesterday two men – one of the lorry’s drivers, Eamonn Harrison, 24, and a ringleader of the operation, Gheorghe Nica, 43 – were found guilty of 39 counts of manslaughter at the Old Bailey in London.
Lorry driver Maurice Robinson, 26, and haulage chief Ronan Hughes, 41, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing. Had their trip last October been successful, the gang stood to make around £1million in just a month.
The verdicts bring the number convicted over the tragic smuggling operation – which stretched from Vietnam to its fatal conclusion on an industrial estate in Grays, Essex, via Russia, France and Belgium – to eight in Britain.
Prosecutors here are considering charges against a further three people, while eight smugglers have been convicted in Vietnam for their roles.
It can now be reported that officials missed a series of chances to stop the gang during earlier smuggling operations before the fatal ferry crossing from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge to Purfleet.
In May 2018 Harrison, a driver from Northern Ireland who took part in the France-Belgium leg of last October’s fatal journey, was stopped at the Channel Tunnel in Calais where the Border Force found 18 Vietnamese migrants in his trailer.
Harrison pretended he had no idea how the migrants got into his lorry and he was let off with a fine.
Some 17 months later – and a week before the deaths of the 39 – another driver linked to the gang, Christopher Kennedy, was found with 20 Vietnamese at the tunnel entrance.
Kennedy, 24, also pleaded ignorance and he too was allowed to continue. Police also ignored repeated tip-offs from a member of the public in Orsett, a village near Grays, about suspicious activity near her home.
Two weeks before the tragedy Marie Andrews called police three times to say she had seen migrants jumping out of a lorry and into a fleet of Mercedes driven by traffickers. Officers went to the scene and carried out a search but did not check CCTV footage from the locality. Miss Andrews told the trial the police ‘had not been listening’ to her concerns.
Orsett was found to be the last staging post for the gang to transfer migrants to London.
Last night Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Stoten, of Essex Police, admitted chances had been missed to catch the smugglers and said authorities were ‘blind’ to the threat.
He said before the tragedy, lorry drivers found with migrants in their vehicles were treated as victims because it was assumed they had no knowledge of their human cargo. ‘Now nationally, lorry drivers are instantly treated as a suspect,’ he added.
The missed chances also took place despite warnings from the National Crime Agency and border forces about the route from Vietnam, often via Russia, several years ago.
Nica, of Basildon, and Harrison, were also convicted of being part of a wider people-smuggling gang yesterday, along with Kennedy, of County Armagh, and Valentin Calota, 38, of Birmingham. Two others linked to the gang – Gazmir Nuzi and Alexandru Hanga – admitted conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.
All will be sentenced next month. The maximum for people smuggling is 14 years in prison, with manslaughter carrying a possible life sentence.
‘A witness called police three times’
THE image of 39 desperate migrants spending their final minutes on this earth gasping for breath in the back of a crammed container lorry is truly heart-breaking.
Originally from Vietnam, they were smuggled into Britain on a ferry from Belgium having paid up to £30,000 to international traffickers. The gang’s callous indifference to their safety led to death by slow suffocation.
So yes, the manslaughter convictions yesterday of two of the smugglers, bringing the total found guilty in this country to eight, are to be welcomed.
But lessons must be learned. Police and border officers missed a string of chances to stop the traffickers sooner. They must carry out a forensic examination of these failings to prevent them happening again.
Along with France and Belgium, we have a moral duty to crack down on this vile trade. As this case shows only too poignantly, lives depend on it.