The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Police investigating lorry deaths given more time to quiz driver
Detectives investigating the deaths of 39 people found in the back of a lorry in Essex have been given an extra 24 hours to question the driver.
A 25-year-old man, named locally as Mo Robinson, from Northern Ireland, was arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in custody.
Officers were granted a warrant to hold him for more time by magistrates in Basildon, an Essex Police spokeswoman said yesterday.
Earlier it was confirmed that the eight women and 31 men found in the vehicle on an industrial estate in Grays were all Chinese.
On Wednesday, police searched three addresses in Northern Ireland as part of the investigation.
Councillor Paul Berry said the village of Laurelvale, near Portadown, where the
Robinson family live, was in “complete shock”.
The discovery echoes one in 2000 when the bodies of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants who had paid a criminal gang to be smuggled into the UK were found in a sealed, airless container in Dover.
Essex Police Deputy Chief Constable Pippa Mills said: “This is an incredibly sensitive and high-profile investigation, and we are working swiftly to gather as full a picture as possible as to how these people lost their lives.
“Our recovery of the bodies is ongoing and the post-mortem and identification processes, which will be lengthy and complex, can then begin.”
Home Secretary Priti Patel met with officers from the force to be updated on the investigation and local dignitaries and police gathered to open a book of condolence.