A NEW documentary reveals how detectives cracked open a multimillion-pound international smuggling ring with links to hauliers in Northern Ireland.
'Hunting the Essex Lorry Killers', due to be broadcast next week, investigates the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants found in a lorry in an industrial estate in Essex in 2019.
Spanning Britain, Europe and Vietnam and with exclusive access to Essex Police and the evidence, the BBC Two programme reveals how detectives painstakingly pieced together a complex web of testimony, including the role of a witness known only as 'Witness X', whose evidence helped bring down the criminal gang.
The documentary also features interviews with the families in Vietnam of some of those who lost their lives in the back of the lorry, who tell their heart-breaking stories of losing loved ones on the false promise of a new life in the UK.
The bodies of 28 men, eight women and three children were found closely packed inside the sealed HGV container as steam poured from its doors in Grays, Essex.
They had tried to break out of the sealed lorry trailer and sent heartbreaking goodbye messages to family before they ran out of air and were found dead on UK soil.
Two ringleaders of the people-smuggling gang responsible for the deaths, Ronan Hughes from Co Monaghan, who ran the haulage company, and Gheorghe Nica, received prison sentences of 20 and 27 years.
Eamonn Harrison from Mayobridge, Co Down was jailed for 18 years, while Co Armagh lorry driver Mo Robinson, who was paid £25,000 in cash to pick up the container, was sentenced to 13 years and four months.
He had been instructed to open the lorry trailer to give the migrants air shortly after collecting it from Purfleet docks.
When he opened the doors, he found they were all dead. He waited 20 minutes before calling emergency services.
The documentary hears from DCI Daniel Stoten of Essex Police, who said it had been the "largest investigation in our force’s history".
He tells how the temperature in the refrigerated trailer increased significantly after the migrants were locked in by Harrison in France.
"At 8.02 the last message was recorded on the victim’s phone," he said.
"The temperature reached its peak at 38.5 degrees between 9.42 and 9.52.
"And then the temperature slowly started to decrease. And the messages stopped, and the temperature dropped. One by one they were dying."
Hunting The Essex Lorry Killers airs on October 13 on BBC2 at 9pm.
