A Lorry Driver has plead guilty to manslaughter, after 39 dead bodies were found in his container
A lorry driver has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 39 people who were found dead in the back of a refrigerated container in Essex.
Maurice Robinson, aged 25, from Craigavon in Northern Ireland, entered his plea at the Old Bailey.
The bodies were found in the container in October last year, in an industrial park in Essex, east of London, after a local ambulance service alerted police.
Police confirmed that eight of the victims are women and 31 are men, including 10 teenagers, two of them 15-year-old boys.
The Lorry arrived in the UK arrived on a ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium in the early hours of October 23 last year.
Essex Police have said that the front tractor unit of the truck had arrived in the U.K. from Dublin at the weekend, and acquired the trailer, which had travelled from Zeebrugge in Belgium, at Purfleet port on the River Thames.
Five men were charged for the incident after an investigation by Essex Police, and they appeared for a virtual hearing via video-call at the Old Bailey before Justice Sweeney.
Gheorghe Nica, age 43, from Langdon Hills, has denied the 39 counts of manslaughter, and had also denied conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration between 1 May2018 and 24 October 2019.
Romanian national Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, age 27, from Tilbury, denied a charge of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.
Christopher Kennedy, age 23, from Darkley, Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, had also previously denied the charges of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration
Valentin Calota, age 37, from Birmingham, was not asked to enter a plea to the charge of conspiring to assist unlawful immigration.
Robinson had previously admitted conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and acquiring criminal property.
At the hearing on Wednesday, the truck driver also admitted 39 counts of manslaughter on or before the 24th of October last year.
More to come soon…
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