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A young man recorded a final message for his wife and children, saying, “I’m sorry. I can’t take care of you ”, while suffocating in the back of a truck with 38 other migrants, a court has heard.
Jurors at the trial of an alleged human smuggling ring were informed of desperate attempts to raise the alarm when the 39 men, women and children ran out of air while being smuggled across the English Channel in a sealed container.
Vietnamese citizens, aged 15 to 44, were allegedly trapped in the trailer for 12 hours in temperatures up to 38.5 ° C.
London’s Old Bailey heard they may have died because “greedy” human traffickers tried to make two charges in one.
Northern Ireland truck driver Eamonn Harrison allegedly left the container at the Zeebrugge ferry port just before 2pm on October 22 last year.
Gheorghe Nica (left) and Eamonn Harrison (right), at the Old Bailey (Elizabeth Cook / PA) “>It was loaded onto the MV Clementine at 2.52 pm, and the ship sailed 36 minutes late at 3.36 pm
By 6.25pm, the temperature in the trailer had risen to nearly 35 ° C.
The sweltering conditions were demonstrated in three selfies taken by Pham Thi Tra My, 26, which were shown to the court.
Just before 7 p.m., another victim, 20-year-old Nguyen Dinh Luong, tried to call the Vietnamese emergency services, dialing 133, but did not connect.
For the next few minutes, Pham Thi Tra My made repeated attempts to make calls on her mobile.
At 7.37 pm, Nguyen Tho Tuan, 25, recorded a message in Vietnamese for his wife, children and family.
In it he said: “It’s Tuan. Sorry. I can’t take care of you. Sorry. Sorry. I can’t breathe.
“I want to go back to my family. Have a good life. “
In a mobile phone video recorded at 8:02 pm, a voice says: “I can’t breathe… I can’t breathe. Sorry. I have to go now.”
In a second video file on the same mobile phone, recorded a minute later, the same voice repeats that it is sorry, and after a long pause it adds: “It’s all my fault.”
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones told jurors that a voice could be heard in the background of one of the recordings saying, “He’s dead.”
By 9.02pm, the temperature in the trailer had reportedly reached 38 ° C.
Maurice Robinson has already admitted his involvement in the human smuggling plot (Elizabeth Cook / PA) “>A forensic expert estimated that it would have taken about nine hours for the air in the trailer to become toxic, shortly after causing death.
Jurors heard how Chief Carrier Ronan Hughes had instructed truck driver Maurice Robinson on what to do when he picked up the container in Purfleet early Oct. 23.
In a Snapchat message, Hughes told her, “Give them air quickly, but don’t let them out.”
Emlyn Jones told jurors: “Of course, they were right to be concerned. However, they were too late. “
After picking up the container, CCTV showed Robinson park, walk to the back of the truck, and open the door slightly.
He took a step back and stood there for 90 seconds before slowly walking back to his taxi, the court heard.
Robinson didn’t call 999 until 1.36 a.m., after driving and speaking with Hughes.
Jurors heard how human cargo had previously been successfully transported in truck containers from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Purfleet in Essex on October 11 and 18.
But on October 14, 20 migrants were expelled from a truck driven by Christopher Kennedy bound for the Eurotunnel, the court was informed.
Emlyn Jones suggested that the October 23 trip turned into a tragedy because the smugglers, who were paid £ 10,000
(€ 11,000) per head, he just got ‘too greedy’.
He told jurors: “It may have crossed your mind: why did this trip go so terribly wrong, when on other occasions migrants survived the trip and were unloaded safely?
‘You may well conclude that this time the criminals got too greedy, at £ 10,000 a head.
“We may not be able to determine for sure, but it may not be a coincidence that a truckload of migrants was detected and that 20 people were ejected from Kennedy’s truck on the night of October 14.
“Did this mean that human traffickers were under pressure to double down?
“Remember, at least two of those migrants who died the night of 22-23 had been among those who had been kicked out of Kennedy’s truck a week earlier.
“They were doing two charges in one and that caused those deaths?”
Gheorghe Nica 43, of Basildon, Essex, and Harrison, 23, of Mayobridge, Co Down, deny 39 counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Harrison, Kennedy, 24, of Co Armagh, and Valentin Calota, 37, of Birmingham, deny being part of a larger human trafficking operation, which Nica has admitted.
The court has previously heard that four other defendants have already admitted their involvement in the human trafficking plot.
Among them are Robinson, 26, of Craigavon in Co Armagh, who found the 39 dead migrants in the container after picking it up in Purfleet, and Hughes, 41, of Co Armagh, who admitted manslaughter.
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