Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘The trailer was packed full of semi-naked bodies’
Policeman tells court of finding tragic migrants after 999 alert
A POLICE officer found the tightlypacked half-naked bodies of 39 migrants in the back of a lorry trailer, a court heard yesterday.
Jack Emerson was among the first at the scene in Essex after driver Maurice Robinson dialled 999 last October.
Robinson, 26, had picked up the trailer after it was transported from Zeebrugge in Belgium, the Old Bailey has heard.
He opened the doors but drove around and spoke to haulage boss Ronan Hughes and alleged organiser Gheorghe Nica by phone before raising the alarm.
PC Emerson told the jury when police arrived at 1.50am, Robinson appeared calm.
The officer said: “I could see one of the trailer doors was already open and I could see half-naked bodies.
“It became apparent as I got closer that the entire trailer was full of bodies.
“All of the bodies appeared intact and it was my opinion they had not been there very long as there was not any visible sign of decomposure. There was, however, a strange smell coming from the trailer that smelt like chemicals.
“There was also smoke condensation coming from the rear of the trailer which suggested the trailer was refrigerated.”
The officer said in a statement read to the court that the driver was arrested on suspicion of murder after a colleague called to “get him in cuffs”.
PC Emerson said the bodies were “closely packed” together, mainly lying on their backs. He added: “I immediately started scanning the trailer to look for signs of life but there was not.”
He said some of them appeared to be “frothing from the mouth” and some were warm.
Jurors have heard Robinson and Hughes, 41, both from Co Armagh, admitted manslaughter of the migrants.
Lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 23, from Co Down, who dropped the trailer off at Zeebrugge, has denied 39 counts of manslaughter along with Nica, 43,
from
Basildon. Harrison, lorry driver Christopher Kennedy, 24, from Co Armagh, and Valentin Calota, 37, from Birmingham, denied being part of a wider peoplesmuggling conspiracy, which Nica has admitted to.
Jurors heard the Vietnamese nationals, aged 15 to 44, were pronounced dead at 2.40am on October 23 last year.
The trial continues.