two men have been found guilty of the
manslaughter of 39 vietnamese men women
and children
who suffocated inside a lorry trailer as
they were smuggled into britain last
october
the jury also found george nika and
damon harrison guilty
of conspiracy to assist illegal
immigration
our home affairs correspondent daniel
sanford has been following the case
hello cause patient breathing hello uh
no
i'm a lorry driver and i just lifted a
trailer from
the port one of the people smugglers on
the phone to the 999 operator
there's immigrants in the back but
they're they're all lying on the ground
tell me approximately how many patients
uh
25 25 patients not breathing
yeah yeah but mo robinson was lying
police officers found the bodies of 39
vietnamese people
robinson pleaded guilty to manslaughter
as did his boss ronan hughes
today another ringleader george nika and
another lorry driver
eamonn harrison were also found guilty
the criminals involved in this case
made their money from miss from misery
they knew what they were doing was
dangerous
but they they did it anyway
their 39 victims had boarded what they'd
been promised was a vip service
among them two cousins nun van hoong and
18 year old juan van tip
in vietnam the teenager's father still
prays for him daily
his mother told us they thought they
were paying 10 000
pounds for a safe route to england
nobody knew that the journey to the uk
was going to be like that
if they had known nobody would have let
their children risk their lives
on such a dangerous journey the older
cousin's father
thinks he was tricked
i don't know what happened but something
must have changed in their plan
either that or he
died trying repeatedly to call her
family
she'd only left vietnam a few days
earlier traveling via china
others came through countries as diverse
as russia germany and portugal
for most the last stage of their journey
began in paris
first a taxi ride to northern france but
there
they were transferred into an air-tight
trailer towed by eamonn harrison
who took them to zurbrugger to travel
unaccompanied to essex
but there were too many migrants in the
airtight box
and slowly the oxygen ran out nguyen
thought
left a message for his children i'm
sorry
i cannot take care of you i'm sorry i
cannot breathe
police found dents on the ceiling of the
trailer left by those inside
trying desperately to escape mo robinson
who collected it from perfleet docks
had received an urgent message from his
boss ronan hughes
give them air quickly don't let them out
but when he opened the doors there was a
puff of vapour
and a trailer full of bodies the vip
service
had been a death trap ronan hughes and
george nika seen here handing over a
large bag of money
led the people smuggling gang and there
had been an opportunity to stop them
a previous run on the same route just
days before
was caught on cctv and reported to the
police
a couple whose home overlooks the site
saw around
15 people getting out of the truck and
into a group of waiting cars
they called the police but the people
smuggling gang
wasn't identified until after the 39
deaths
12 days later the bodies of those who
died on the fatal run were flown home to
vietnam
and the two cousins were buried side by
side
daniel sandford bbc news