Essex lorry deaths latest: Two arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after 39 people found dead

Patrick Grafton-Green25 October 2019
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Two more people have been arrested after 39 suspected Chinese migrants were found dead in a lorry in Essex.

The pair, both aged 38 and from Warrington, have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people.

Detectives are still questioning the driver of the truck on suspicion of murder.

A statement from Essex Police said: "We have carried out warrants in Cheshire as part of the investigation into 39 bodies being discovered in a lorry trailer in Grays.

"As a result, a 38-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman from Warrington have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and on suspicion of 39 counts of manslaughter.

"A 25-year-old man, the driver of the lorry, remains in custody on suspicion of murder. A warrant of further detention was granted yesterday by local magistrates."

39 Bodies found in a container at Waterglade Industrial Park, Grays

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A huge police investigation is under way with post-mortem examinations due to begin on the bodies found in a refrigerated trailer in Grays in the early hours of Wednesday.

On Thursday evening, the first 11 bodies were moved by a private ambulance with a police escort from the port of Tilbury to Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.

Police have not confirmed if the driver, named locally as Mo Robinson, from Northern Ireland, raised the alarm after finding the eight women and 31 men. His supporters have set up petitions online calling for his release.

It is also not yet known when the victims entered the sealed refrigerated trailer, where temperatures can drop to -25C, or the exact route it travelled. It has been confirmed that it travelled via Belgium.

Belgian officials said the trailer arrived at Zeebrugge at 2.49pm on Tuesday and left the port the same day en route to Purfleet.

Joachim Coens, chief executive of Zeebrugge port, said it was unlikely people were loaded into the container at the Belgian site, while Mayor Dirk De Fauw, who is also the chairman of the port, said it was "virtually impossible" the victims went into the trailer at the Belgian border.

Former detective superintendent Mike Gradwell, who worked on the probe into the Morecambe Bay cockling tragedy in which 23 Chinese illegal immigrants drowned​, said the 39 people who died could have been trafficked by a Snakehead gang.

"These are criminal travel agents really - you go to a Snakehead to say you want to be trafficked to an economic opportunity and usually you'll borrow quite a significant amount of money," he said.

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