Haulier pleads guilty over deaths of migrants in lorry

A haulier has pleaded guilty to his part in the deaths of 39 migrants in a trailer on the back of a lorry.

The bodies of the Vietnamese nationals were discovered on an industrial estate in Grays, Essex, shortly after the lorry arrived in Purfleet on a ferry in the early hours of October 23 last year.

Among the men, women and children were 10 teenagers, two of them 15- yearold boys.

An inquest heard their medical cause of death was asphyxia and hyperthermia - a lack of oxygen and over heating-in an enclosed space.

On Friday, haulier Ronan Hughes ,40, from Co Armagh in Northern Ireland, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to 39 counts of manslaughter.

He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration between May 1 2018 and October 24 2019.

It was alleged he played a leading role in the operation, with his trailers and drivers used to transport migrants.

Hughes appeared in the dock alongside Eamonn Harrison, 23, of Mayobridge, Co Down, Northern Ireland, who is alleged to have driven the lorry trailer to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge before it sailed to Purfleet in England.

Harrison pleaded not guilty to 39 counts of manslaughter and one count of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

Harrison and Hughes appeared at the Old Bailey after being extradited from the Republic of Ireland in July.