LONDON (Reuters) – Four men were given lengthy prison sentences on Friday for the manslaughter of 39 Vietnamese men, women and children who died in a suffocating, airtight shipping container in October 2019 when smuggled into Britain.
The discovery of so many dead – two as young as 15 – in the back of the truck in an industrial estate east of London shocked Britain and Vietnam. It also shed a spotlight on the illegal world trade that is sending the poor of Asia, Africa and the Middle East on dangerous journeys to the West.
When the oxygen level dropped, some desperately tried to escape, but to no avail. Others used cell phones to say their last goodbyes to devastated relatives on the other side of the world.
Judge Nigel Sweeney said they had suffered an “excruciatingly slow death” when he jailed seven men involved in the trafficking gang for a total of 92 years in London’s Old Bailey criminal court.
He said it was a sophisticated, long-term and profitable plan that would have yielded the gang hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The four who admitted or were found guilty of manslaughter and immigration crimes were 41-year-old transporter Ronan Hughes from Northern Ireland, the plot’s leader who was imprisoned for 20 years, and Romanian Gheorghe Nica, 44, another important figure, who was sentenced to 27 years behind bars.
Maurice Robinson, 26, the Northern Irish driver of the truck in which the bodies were found, was detained for 13 years, while Eamonn Harrison, 24, also from the British province, drove the container to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge from where the victims were Brought to Britain, were sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Most of those who died were from Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces of northern central Vietnam, where poor job prospects, environmental disasters and the promise of financial rewards abroad are driving migration.
British police have released tributes from the relatives of those who have died, including the parents of football fan Nguyen Huy Hung, 15.
“He always dreamed of going to the UK and he tried his best to study in school and learn English before that,” they said.
Reporting by Michael Holden; edited by James Davey and Angus MacSwan