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Second man charged over UK truck deaths, victims now thought to be Vietnamese

By Amanda Ferguson

 

Police move the lorry container where bodies were discovered, in Grays, Essex, Britain October 23, 2019. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

 

BELFAST (Reuters) - A second man was charged with manslaughter over the deaths of 39 people found in the back of a truck near London, British police said on Friday, as they confirmed they now believe all the victims were Vietnamese.

 

In Vietnam, police said they had detained two people.

 

The discovery of the bodies in a container on an industrial estate has shone a spotlight on the illicit trade that sends the poor of Asia, Africa and the Middle East on perilous journeys to the West.

 

The alleged truck driver has already been charged over the deaths, and on Friday detectives said Eamon Harrison, 23, from Northern Ireland, was also accused of 39 counts of manslaughter as well as human trafficking and immigration offences.

 

Harrison appeared at Dublin's High Court at the start of proceedings to extradite him from Ireland to Britain. He was remanded in custody until Nov. 11, a court spokesman said.

 

The bodies were found in the early hours of Oct. 23 after the container arrived in Britain from Zeebrugge in Belgium.

The container was picked up at Purfleet dock in Essex, east of London, by a truck allegedly driven by Maurice Robinson, 25, from Northern Ireland.

 

The victims were found not long afterwards. Police have not confirmed the exact cause of their deaths.

 

They initially said the victims were thought to be Chinese, but on Friday evening they said they were now all believed to Vietnamese.

 

"We are in direct contact with a number of families in Vietnam and the UK, and we believe we have identified families for some of the victims," Essex police Assistant Chief Constable Tim Smith said on Twitter.

 

ARRESTS IN VIETNAM

 

Vietnamese police said they had arrested two people and summoned others for questioning on Friday after opening a criminal investigation into suspected human trafficking.

 

British police also appealed on Friday to Ronan Hughes, 40, and his brother Christopher, 34, from Armagh in Northern Ireland, who they said were crucial to their inquiries. They are wanted on suspicion of manslaughter and human trafficking.

 

Daniel Stoten, the officer leading the investigation, said police had spoken by telephone to Ronan Hughes recently but needed to question the brothers in person.

 

"Today I want to make a direct appeal. Ronan and Christopher, hand yourselves in," Detective Chief Inspector Stoten said.

 

Lawyers for Global Trailer Rentals, the owner of the trailer, have said Ronan Hughes signed the papers to rent the container, giving an address matching the haulier, C Hughes Transport. Christopher Hughes is listed as a director of C Hughes Logistics Ltd, based in Armagh.

 

(Additional reporting by Conor Humphries and Graham Fahy in Dublin; writing by Michael Holden and Stephen Addison; editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Giles Elgood and Timothy Heritage)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-11-02

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[TopDeadSenter]

These people smugglers deserve the harshest penalties for their evil and reckless deeds. But I think the blame goes much further than that. Local residents say they all knew what was going on with vans stopping at all hours to whisk people away from the trucks. The police and local authorities at Purfleet were well aware the area was being used by people trafficking gangs yet did absolutely nothing to stop the trade. Whether this was due to their political ideals or if they were bound by PC to ignore it is irrelevant. The authorities there are just as culpable as the driver and organizers of the smuggling for these poor Vietnamese peoples deaths. I hope they are all punished equally. The laws must be upheld, had proper border controls been in place none of these people would have perished. 

[wombat]

RIP to all those who died.
so just to be clear about the drivers involvement......he stopped the truck before its destination depot and opened the reefer up to let out the people who were in there?

Edited November 2, 2019 by wombat

[TopDeadSenter]

The Thames port where 39 Chinese migrants arrived this week “comes alive at night” with new arrivals and people smugglers, according to a former security guard.

People-smuggling operations are so well organised that minibuses meet the lorries to take away the migrants and on one occasion they were even collected by a coach, he told The Times.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lorry-deaths-smuggling-is-so-rife-theres-a-migrant-minibus-service-say-purfleet-residents-5h5rr6q5l

 

Posted as conclusive proof that the people smuggling was absolutely known to be going on by everyone in the vicinity. There is no way on earth local authorities were unaware it was going on. Too late to edit my above post sorry.

[Chomper Higgot]

28 minutes ago, TopDeadSenter said:

The Thames port where 39 Chinese migrants arrived this week “comes alive at night” with new arrivals and people smugglers, according to a former security guard.

People-smuggling operations are so well organised that minibuses meet the lorries to take away the migrants and on one occasion they were even collected by a coach, he told The Times.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lorry-deaths-smuggling-is-so-rife-theres-a-migrant-minibus-service-say-purfleet-residents-5h5rr6q5l

 

Posted as conclusive proof that the people smuggling was absolutely known to be going on by everyone in the vicinity. There is no way on earth local authorities were unaware it was going on. Too late to edit my above post sorry.

People being found dead in a transport container is proof, what a 'former security guard' tells The Times is hearsay. 

[Kinnock]

7 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

People being found dead in a transport container is proof, what a 'former security guard' tells The Times is hearsay. 

The reports says 'residents' so perhaps The Times have better investigative powers than the Official who said the poor 39 souls were Chinese.

 

Was that because everyone with Oriental eyes must be Chinese?

 

My guess is they may not be Vietnamese either - more likely from Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos or perhaps Uygurs - on a complex people trafficking route.  The economy in Vietnam is doing OK, and oppression of minority groups is not big there.

 

But if a country hands out free money, they will get the 'huddled masses'.

[Enoon]

 

1 hour ago, Kinnock said:

The reports says 'residents' so perhaps The Times have better investigative powers than the Official who said the poor 39 souls were Chinese.

 

Was that because everyone with Oriental eyes must be Chinese?

 

My guess is they may not be Vietnamese either - more likely from Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos or perhaps Uygurs - on a complex people trafficking route.  The economy in Vietnam is doing OK, and oppression of minority groups is not big there.

 

But if a country hands out free money, they will get the 'huddled masses'.

 

1. With each day that goes past it becomes increasingly evident that they are Vietnamese (and not "more likely to come from.......").

 

2. There is plenty off info around to show/explain that the illegal Vietnamese come from a specific, poor, economically retarded part of Vietnam, and that there is an excess of labour in the country as a whole.

 

3. It is axiomatic that there can be no "free money" for unregistered, undocumented Vietnamese illegals, who are off the radar, "underground", and in the black economy (which is where they end up). 

 

4. I am fully aware that I am talking to a brick wall.

 

5. What goes around, comes around.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/world/europe/vietnamese-migrants-europe.html

"In Britain, where Brexit has discouraged the flow of labor from Eastern Europe, migrants see a country thirsty for low-wage workers, paying easily five times what they could earn at home"

 

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2019 by Enoon

[nausea]

Just open up channels for these low wage workers to come to the UK legitimately, like, they're coming anyway. Incidently, my father was recruited in Ireland to work in the British mines, married an English gal, and by all accounts his offspring are contributing to The National Wealth pretty substantially. I'm the black sheep, upped sticks and f#@ked off to Thailand. Still, when I was in the UK I did my bit. I've had a varied career and all the immigrants I've met were adding value.

[Kinnock]

2 hours ago, Enoon said:

 

 

1. With each day that goes past it becomes increasingly evident that they are Vietnamese (and not "more likely to come from.......").

 

2. There is plenty off info around to show/explain that the illegal Vietnamese come from a specific, poor, economically retarded part of Vietnam, and that there is an excess of labour in the country as a whole.

 

3. It is axiomatic that there can be no "free money" for unregistered, undocumented Vietnamese illegals, who are off the radar, "underground", and in the black economy (which is where they end up). 

 

4. I am fully aware that I am talking to a brick wall.

 

5. What goes around, comes around.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/world/europe/vietnamese-migrants-europe.html

"In Britain, where Brexit has discouraged the flow of labor from Eastern Europe, migrants see a country thirsty for low-wage workers, paying easily five times what they could earn at home"

 

 

 

 

Ooh!  Numbered bullet points - must all be true then.

[Chomper Higgot]

59 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

Ooh!  Numbered bullet points - must all be true then.

Bullet point 4 certainly is.