UK: People smugglers sentenced over 39 migrants deaths

LONDON

Four members of a people smuggling racket were sentenced to a combined sentence of almost 80 years in the UK after 39 illegal Vietnamese immigrants died in the back of their lorry in Essex, October 2019.

The victims included men, women, and children, two of whom were just 15, who suffocated to death in a sealed trailer with temperatures of up to 38.5C (101.3F). The lorry had travelled to Purfleet docks in Essex from Belgium.

Two of the four men admitted to the 39 charges of manslaughter.

Irishman and hauler Ronan Hughes, 41, was reported to be a ringleader and was paid £3,000 ($4,105) for each migrant who arrived safely. In exchange, he supplied lorries and drivers.

He admitted to manslaughter and people smuggling and was jailed for 20 years.

Lorry driver Maurice Robinson, from Northern Ireland, was the one who collected the trailer at Purfleet and discovered the dead bodies. It took him 23 minutes to call an ambulance.

Robinson also admitted to manslaughter and people smuggling, and was sentenced for 13 years and four months.

Another lorry driver from Northern Ireland, Eamonn Harrison, 24, had picked up the migrants in France and drove them to Belgium to make their way to Essex. He denied the manslaughter and people smuggling charges, saying he was told to park and hide when the migrants were put into his trailer. He said he thought he was smuggling stolen lorry parts.

He was also convicted of the charges and was jailed for 18 years.

Gheorghe Nica, 43, was reported to be responsible for transferring migrants from lorries to a safehouse in south London, and supplying the cars and drivers to do so.

He denied manslaughter, but admitted to involvement in previous smuggling operations and was jailed for 27 years.

Justice Sweeney, the judge, said the defendants jailed for manslaughter would serve two-thirds of their term in custody, rather than the usual half.

"I have no doubt that, as asserted by the prosecution, the conspiracy was a sophisticated, long running, and profitable one to smuggle mainly Vietnamese migrants across the channel," he said.