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January 23, 2021
LONDON: Four people smugglers have been jailed for between 13 and 27 years for the manslaughter of 39 migrants, who suffered an “excruciating” death in an airtight trailer.
The victims, Vietnamese men, woman and children, had hoped for a better life in Britain when they agreed to pay up to £13,000 a head for a “VIP” smuggling service. On October 22 2019, they were crammed into a lorry container to be shipped from Zeebrugge to Purfleet in Essex in pitch black and sweltering conditions.
The Old Bailey heard how they desperately tried to raise the alarm as they ran out of air before reaching British shores. The migrants, two aged just 15, were found dead by lorry driver Maurice Robinson who collected the trailer from the docks early the next morning.
Police and forensic officers at the Waterglade Industrial Park in Essex in October 2019
Credit: PA
The people smuggling kingpin behind the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants, remains at large, a judge has said, as police warned traffickers who trade in human misery “we will find you and we will stop you”.
Four men were jailed at the Old Bailey on Friday for between 13-years and four months and 27-years after being convicted of the manslaughter of the migrants who suffocated in the back of a lorry in October 2019.
But the judge in the case, Mr Justice Sweeney, said there was a mysterious Vietnamese mastermind by the name of Phong, who was at the very top of the conspiracy.
Mid and South Essex NHS Trust placed its three hospitals on “critical alert on Tuesday.
The Essex Resilience Forum (ERF), which brings together councils, emergency services, the NHS, voluntary organisations and others in times of crisis, said today that the number of Covid-19 hospital patients is higher than at the peak of the first wave in April.
The group warned: “These levels are likely to increase further in the coming days.”
Essex Police Chief Constable Ben-Julian Harrington, who is co-chair of the ERF, said that declaring a major incident allowed the forum to “seek further support from the government to address the severe pressures which the health system is under.”