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People-smuggling gang members jailed over Essex lorry deaths

Watch: Essex lorry death ringleaders jailed

The two ringleaders of the people-smuggling gang responsible for the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people who suffocated in a sealed refrigeration container as they were transported across the Channel from France have received prison sentences of 27 and 20 years.

Ronan Hughes, 41, who ran a haulage company and organised the lorries and drivers to transport the migrants, was sentenced to 20 years at the Old Bailey on Friday. He pleaded guilty last year to 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiring to bring people into the country unlawfully.

Hughes, an Irish haulier, alternated between legitimate shipments of waffles, soft drinks and wine from warehouses across Europe and illegal smuggling of alcohol, cigarettes and people.

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His co-conspirator Gheorghe Nica, 43, a Romanian lorry mechanic who helped coordinate the transport of the migrants, and who was found guilty last year of manslaughter and people-smuggling, was sentenced by Mr Justice Sweeney to 27 years in prison.

Maurice Robinson, 26, the lorry driver from Northern Ireland who collected the container containing the 39 people from the port in Essex in October 2019, and also pleaded guilty last year to manslaughter and people-smuggling, was sentenced to 13 years and four months.

A screengrab of Maurice Robinson leaving Purfleet port
A screengrab of Maurice Robinson leaving Purfleet port. Photograph: Essex Police/PA

He was paid £25,000 in cash to pick up the container and had been instructed by Hughes to open the lorry trailer to give the migrants air shortly after collecting it from Purfleet docks, but he found they were all dead. He waited 20 minutes before calling emergency services. A cloud of steam that emerged from the trailer, caught on CCTV, “spoke volumes of the heat that was still inside the trailer”, the judge said.

The victims were 28 men, eight women and three children, two of them aged 15. When it became obvious that there was insufficient oxygen they made desperate attempts to escape through the roof of the container, and tried to call emergency services in Vietnam. As they began to die inside the dark container, where the temperature had risen to 38.5C, they recorded farewell messages for their relatives. They died “excruciatingly slow deaths”, the judge said, of asphyxia and hyperthermia, or overheating.

Sweeney said there was a need for deterrent sentences because “the control of immigration, which affects the social fabric of our country, our economy and our security is an area of considerable public concern”.

Lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 24, also from Northern Ireland, who collected the migrants in northern France and drove the container, was found guilty of people-smuggling and 39 counts of manslaughter in December. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

The four defendants charged with manslaughter all said they had not intended harm to the victims, but the judge noted that the conspiracy was committed for financial gain.

Christopher Kennedy, 24, another lorry driver from Northern Ireland who was involved in earlier people-smuggling runs bringing Vietnamese migrants from Northern Ireland, was sentenced to seven years.

The trial exposed for the first time a complex and lucrative operation which has for years illegally brought Vietnamese people into the UK. Each passenger paid smugglers between £10,000 and £13,000 to be brought from northern France. The prosecution described the people-smuggling conspiracy as “sophisticated, long-running and profitable”.

Valentin Calota, 38, a pick-up driver from Romania, who collected migrants from the lorry drop-off spot in Essex and drove them to London during an earlier consignment, was sentenced to four and a half years. Alexandru Hanga, 28, who performed a similar role on one occasion in October 2019, and who last year pleaded guilty to conspiracy to assist unlawful migration, was sentenced to three years in prison.