Give them air ..but don’t let them get out
Message to people smuggler, court told
A PEOPLE smuggler found 39 migrants dead in his lorry after his boss messaged: “Give them air quickly but don’t let them out”, a court heard yesterday.
Maurice Robinson, 26, discovered the bodies of the Vietnamese men, women and children aged 15 to 44 after opening the sealed unit.
They had been trapped for almost 12 hours without fresh air as temperatures reached 38.5C.
Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh, 28, wrote an unsent text to her loved ones reading: “Maybe going to die in the container, can’t breathe any more.”
Prosecutors say migrants were charged “upwards of £10,000” each for a trip across the Channel.
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones QC said: “That lorry had become their tomb.”
Post-mortems showed the victims died of oxygen starvation due to increased carbon dioxide.
The court heard Eamonn Harrison, 23, picked up the migrants in his lorry and took it to Zeebrugge, in Belgium, where it was loaded on to a ship. Robinson collected it at Purfleet docks, Essex, on October 23 last year.
Harrison, from County Down, Northern Ireland, denies 39 manslaughter counts and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.
Gheorghe Nica, 43, of Essex, denies 39 counts of manslaughter but admits conspiracy. Christopher Kennedy, 24, of Northern Ireland, and Valentin Calota, 37, of Birmingham, both deny participating in the conspiracy.
Robinson, from County Armagh, has pled guilty to 39 counts of manslaughter and the conspiracy charge.
Ronan Hughes, 41, also admits 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy.
The trial continues.