DRIVER CHARGED OVER 39 DEATHS Pages 6, 7
Police probe claim truck was in convoy of 3 carrying 100 migrants
THE trucker arrested after the horrific discovery of a lorry containing the bodies of 39 people was last night charged with manslaughter.
After three days in custody, Maurice ‘Mo’ Robinson was charged with 39 counts of manslaughter, as well as conspiracy to traffic people, conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and money laundering.
Robinson, 25, from Craigavon, County Armagh in Northern Ireland, will appear before Chelmsford Magistrates tomorrow.
Meanwhile a second lorry driver in his 20s was arrested yesterday at Dublin’s port. Last night he was in custody.
Also being held were a couple from Warrington, Cheshire, who were arrested on Friday.
The arrest of the second lorry driver came as it was claimed that the refrigerated trailer in which the dead migrants were found may have been part of a larger convoy of three lorries carrying up to 100 people.
According to a Catholic priest representing families who fear their loved ones are among the dead, the other two lorry trailers and their human cargo are believed to have made it safely into the UK.
Father Anthony Dang Huu Nam, a Catholic priest from Nghe An, a province in Central Vietnam, said bereaved families have come forward to tell him that 100 people were making their way to Britain for a ‘new life’.
He said: ‘In this case, there were many people, more than 100 people, on their way to a better life, but 39 died. A few families have confirmed the deaths of their relatives, who are the victims of this tragic journey.’
The priest added: ‘When I learned of the news of people who were on their way to the UK in search of a new life but lost their lives instead – it’s not just the district of Yen Than, but the whole country that is in sorrow. This is a tragedy the whole country has to bear.’
It is now thought that as many as 25 of the 39 victims are Vietnamese and from the same impoverished coastal region of Yen Than.
Relatives said several were going to work in nail salons.
The family of Pham Thi Tra My revealed she had sent heart-rending text messages as she was suffocating inside the container as it crossed the English Channel.
The 26-year-old, from rural Ha Thin in Central Vietnam, wrote: ‘I’m sorry Dad and Mom.
‘The way I went overseas was not successful ... I’m dying because I can’t breathe. Mom, I am so sorry.’
Her father, Pham Van Thin, who lives in a hut with a corrugated tin roof and earns around £300 per month, yesterday said he and his wife, Nguyen Thi Phong, had scraped together £30,000 to send their daughter to the West for a better life. ‘I’ve lost both my loved one and my money,’ he said.
Mr Pham said the traffickers did not tell him how they would smuggle their daughter to the UK, but knew she had gone via China and France. ‘The smugglers said that this was a safe route, that people would go by airplane, car.
‘If I had known she would go by this route, I would not have let her go,’ he told CNN. Hoang Thi
Thuong, from Nghe An province, fears her husband Nguyen Dinh Tu is also a victim. He paid £11,000 to smugglers to get to Britain but has not been heard from since October 21. Ms Hoang revealed he had been working illegally in
Romania and Germany and had begged her for money to get to the UK. She said: ‘I have a big debt to pay, no hope, and no energy to do anything.’
Tu’s father said: ‘I know he was in that truck because I have relatives who are working over there [in the UK] who called me and told me.
‘They were supposed to pick him up at the drop point but then they called and told me Tu was in that truck.’
Father-of-two Vo Ngoc Nam, 28, is also feared to have been in the illfated container. His wife, Ta Thi Oanh, told Vietnamese media that he had called her last Tuesday afternoon to say he was on the truck going to Britain.
He asked her to call her parents and ask them to pray for him, but has not been heard of since.
Mr Nam’s father, Vo Ngoc Luyen, said: ‘After reading information about the 39 people in the container, my family is extremely shocked. We are waiting for official information from the authorities.’
Others who may be involved are Anna Bui Thi Nhung, 19, whose parents have set up an altar with her photograph at their home; Nguyen Dinh Luong, 20, whose father received a call last week from a Vietnamese man saying ‘something unexpected happened’, and cousins Hung Nguyen, 33, and Hoang Van Tiep.
Their aunt, Thao Nguyen, posted photographs on social media in the hope that they might be found alive, and wrote: ‘They left Paris for the English border at the same time as the 39 who died in the container. Still now we have no news. I’m writing here to ask all dear friends, human rights organisations, and international reporters to help us.’
She said that Hung Nguyen was hoping to start work in a nail bar when he got to the UK.
On Monday, Hoang Van Tiep posted cheerful videos of himself on Facebook with friends next to the Eiffel Tower, a day before
‘The smugglers said this was a safe route’
he made the fateful journey. The refrigerated lorry container left the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on Tuesday afternoon, arriving at Purfleet Docks just after midnight on Wednesday. The trailer is alleged to have been picked up by Mr Robinson at around 12.30am, before being driven to nearby Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays. At around 1.40am, ambulance and police services were called when bodies were discovered inside the trailer.
In an effort to gather more intelligence, Detective Chief Inspector Martin Passmore, of Essex Police, said any friends or relatives of victims who came forward would be granted an ‘amnesty’ from prosecution if they were in the UK illegally themselves.
‘We will take no action whatsoever against an individual that comes forward,’ he said. ‘I want to engage as much as I can with the Vietnamese community. There may well be people who are here illegally who think they may have lost a loved one, and are frightened to come forward.’
He spoke as the bodies of all 39 victims were removed from the lorry container at a secure location in Tilbury docks and taken to a mortuary at the Moorfield Hospital in nearby Chelmsford. Police said fingerprints of the deceased had been taken and sent to Vietnam for fast-track identification.
VietHome, a British organisation which tries to help UK-based Vietnamese residents, said it had been sent 20 photographs and names of people feared to have been inside the lorry container.
Last night, Thomas Maher, 38, the boss of a haulage company from Warrington, Cheshire, and his wife Joanna, 38, were in custody after being arrested in connection to the deaths. A 48-year-old man from Northern Ireland, who was arrested at Stansted Airport, also remains in custody.
Police in Belgium are studying CCTV footage of the haulier who transported the 39 migrants into the Zeebrugge site.
It has emerged that the driver was picked up by CCTV cameras ten times at the port.