Victims of an alleged people smuggling gang shouted ‘open up open up’ before suffocating inside a lorry container, a court heard.
39 Vietnamese migrants were found dead in the trailer after it was transported from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Purfleet in Essex on October 23 last year.
All of the victims, aged between 15 and 44, suffocated in temperatures of up to 38.5C (101.3F) in the pitch dark interior, the jury at London’s Old Bailey was told.
The court heard heard how the trailer was loaded on to the ferry at Zeebrugge at 3pm on 22 October last year. The ferry, the Clementine, set off 36 minutes later with the container stowed on the weather deck.
At 6.25pm, a young Vietnamese woman took a series of selfies on her phone showing the sweltering conditions inside.
Over the next couple of hours, occupants attempted to make phone calls, with one ringing the emergency number for Vietnamese police without success.
The calls revealed how the victims were struggling to breathe, with some realising others had already died before they all perished.
In a recorded message to his family, Nguyen Tho Tuan, 25, said: ‘I’m sorry. I cannot take care of you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I cannot breathe.
‘I want to come back to my family. Have a good life.’
In another mobile phone recording at 8.02pm, Nguyen Dinh Luong, 20, said: ‘I cannot breathe. I’m sorry, I have to go now.’
In the background, a voice could be heard saying: ‘Come on everyone. Open up, open up.’
In another phone recording two minutes later, the same victim said: ‘I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.’
A voice in the background then says: ‘He’s dead.’
It is believed that carbon dioxide in the trailer reached the ‘toxic threshold’ between 10pm and 10.30pm.
Cargo operator Jason Rook said in a statement that he smelt a ‘decomposing smell’ as he unloaded the trailer at around 11.50pm.
‘As I just passed the doors and reached the left hand side of the trailer I suddenly caught a strong smell that I can only describe as a decomposing smell,’ he said.
Jurors were shown CCTV of lorry driver Maurice Robinson, 26, collecting the trailer and driving out of Purfleet port.
The court was told that Robinson received a Snapchat message allegedly from haulier boss Ronan Hughes saying: ‘Give them air quickly, don’t let them out’, to which he replied with a ‘thumbs up emoji’.
After discovering the bodies prosecutors said Robinson made several phone calls to others accused of roles in the alleged people-trafficking scheme and drove the lorry in a loop around the industrial area.
He called the emergency services 23 minutes later and described finding ‘loads’ of migrants ‘jammed’ into his trailer.
Asked if they were breathing, he said: ‘No, there, there’s er loads of them, there’s immigrants in the back but they’re, they’re all lying on the ground.’
He continued: ‘I went and lifted a trailer from Purfleet the freight terminal and I got around to where I was gonna park up for the night and I heard a noise in the back and I opened the door and there’s a bunch of them lying.’
Asked how many, Robinson said: ‘The trailer is jammed. I don’t know.’
He estimated there were about 25 people in the trailer and confirmed none were breathing.
Jurors have heard that Robinson and Hughes, 41, have previously admitted the migrants’ manslaughters.
Eamonn Harrison, 23, of Co Down, who had dropped the trailer off at Zeebrugge, has denied 39 counts of manslaughter along with alleged key organiser Gheorghe Nica, 43, of Basildon.
Harrison, lorry driver Christopher Kennedy, 24, of Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, and Valentin Calota, 37, of Birmingham, have denied being part of a wider people smuggling conspiracy, which Nica has admitted to.
The trial continues.
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