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{"id":5929,"date":"2022-11-17T11:11:10","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T11:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/?p=5929"},"modified":"2022-11-17T11:53:29","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T11:53:29","slug":"essex-lorry-deaths-men-jailed-for-killing-39-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/2022\/11\/17\/essex-lorry-deaths-men-jailed-for-killing-39-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Essex lorry deaths: Men jailed for killing 39 migrants in trailer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Essex lorry deaths: Men jailed for killing 39 migrants in trailer<\/title><\/p>\n<h2>On all three runs, Nica, of Basildon, Essex, had arranged cars and a van to transport the migrants at the UK end<\/h2>\n<p>The migrants died “excruciatingly painful” deaths, having suffocated in the container en route from Belgium to Purfleet in , a judge said.<\/p>\n<p>Ronan Hughes, 41, and Gheorghe Nica, 43, played “leading roles” in the smuggling conspiracy and were jailed for 20 and 27 years respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Eamonn Harrison, 24, who towed the trailer to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge before their journey to the UK, was sentenced to 18 years.<\/p>\n<p>Maurice Robinson, 26, was given 13 years and four months, having collected the trailer and opened it in an industrial estate to find the migrants dead.<\/p>\n<p>Sentencing, Mr Justice Sweeney said: “I have no doubt that the conspiracy was a sophisticated, long-running and profitable one to smuggle mainly Vietnamese people across the channel.”<\/p>\n<p>He said on the fatal trip the temperature had been rising along with the carbon dioxide levels throughout, hitting 40C (104F) while the container was at sea on .<\/p>\n<p>“There were desperate attempts to contact the outside world by phone and to break through the roof of the container,” the judge said.<\/p>\n<p>“All were to no avail and, before the ship reached Purfleet, [the victims] all died in what must have been an excruciatingly painful death.”<\/p>\n<p>The victims had used a metal pole to try to punch through the roof but only managed to dent the interior.<\/p>\n<p>The court heard some of their final desperate phone messages, including one where a man spoke with ragged breaths as he apologised to his family.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Sweeney added: “The willingness of the victims to try and enter the country illegally provides no excuse for what happened to them.”<\/p>\n<p>During the trial, jurors were given a snapshot of the victims – who included a bricklayer, a university graduate and a nail bar technician – and their dreams of a better life.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Many of their families borrowed heavily to fund their passage, relying on their potential future earnings once they got into the UK.<\/p>\n<p>The father of Nguyen Huy Tung, one of two 15-year-olds in the container, later learned of his son’s death via social media.<\/p>\n<p>Harrison, of Newry, County Down, claimed he did not know there were people in the trailer when he towed it to the Belgian port, and that he <a href=\"https:\/\/datingranking.net\/tattoo-dating\/\">https:\/\/datingranking.net\/tattoo-dating\/<\/a> watched “a wee bit of Netflix” in bed as they were loaded on.<\/p>\n<p>Robinson gave a thumbs-up in reply. When Robinson stopped on a nearby industrial estate, he found that the migrants were all dead.<\/p>\n<p>His barrister said Robinson, who admitted manslaughter, being part of the trafficking plot and money laundering, was “horrified by what he saw”.<\/p>\n<p>The trial examined three smuggling attempts by the gang – two that were successful on 11 and 18 October, and the final trip on 23 October.<\/p>\n<p>When Robinson discovered the bodies, there was a series of telephone conversations between him and Nica and Hughes, of Tyholland, County Monaghan, Ireland, before the driver eventually dialled 999.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Justice Sweeney said that in the conspiracy “two played leading roles, namely – in order of importance – Hughes and Nica”.<\/p>\n<p>He accepted Hughes was “not at the very top of the conspiracy” but said his role was “pivotal. in that he ran a haulage business and supplied the trailers and drivers used to transport the migrants”.<\/p>\n<p>The judge said Nica “recruited and paid the drivers whose job it was to collect the migrants when they reached the drop-off site in this country and to drive them to the safe house(s) where they were to be held until payment”.<\/p>\n<h2>Christopher Kennedy, 24, from County Armagh, was jailed for seven years; Valentin Calota, 38, of Birmingham, for four-and-a-half years; and Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 28, of Hobart Road, Tilbury, Essex, was given a three-year sentence<\/h2>\n<p>Mr Justice Sweeney told the defendants jailed for manslaughter they would serve two-thirds of the term in custody, instead of the usual half.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, Gazmir Nuzi, 43, of Barclay Road, Tottenham, north London, was sentenced, having admitted his limited role in the people-smuggling operation. It was accepted he was not a member of the organised crime group behind the smuggling operation.<\/p>\n<p>Det Ch Insp Daniel Stoten said: “May this serve as a warning to those who think it’s OK to prey on the vulnerabilities of migrants and their families, transporting them in a way worse than we would transport animals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Essex lorry deaths: Men jailed for killing 39 migrants in trailer On all three runs, Nica, of Basildon, Essex, had arranged cars and a van to transport the migrants at the UK end The migrants died “excruciatingly painful” deaths, having suffocated in the container en route from Belgium to Purfleet in , a judge said….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1967],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tattoo-dating-visitors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5930,"href":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5929\/revisions\/5930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agdmv.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}