Migrants found dead in truck were CHINESE: Nationality of 39 stowaways who died in -25C ‘metal coffin’ is revealed as it’s claimed ‘the DRIVER called an ambulance after opening container to grab paperwork and finding a pile of bodies’

 

• Maurice ‘Mo’ Robinson, 25, held on suspicion of murdering 39 Chinese nationals frozen inside lorry in Essex  
• Police have raided his Armagh home – and the home he shared with his parents – who have flown to England 
• Robinson travelled by ferry from Dublin to Holyhead on Saturday and was waiting for the container yesterday  
• He moved lorry to a nearby industrial estate to check his paperwork and found the 31 men and 8 women dead
• Friend told MailOnline: ‘Mo is from the nicest family – he wouldn’t have known those people were in the back’
• Police in Belgium say container arrived at Zeebrugge on Tuesday before ferry to Purfleet, Essex, hours later

The 39 immigrants found frozen to death in the back of a lorry are all Chinese and were discovered by the driver who dialled 999 after he opened the container to grab his paperwork and found piles of bodies, MailOnline can reveal today.

Police are probing whether the immigrants were moved into Britain by a Northern Ireland-based people smuggling ring as three properties across the province were raided overnight.

The stowaways – 31 men and eight women, including a teenager, had travelled 5,000 miles from China to the UK – slowly froze to death in ‘absolutely horrendous’ conditions after they tried to reach the UK on a cargo ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium.

Police are probing whether the victims were being trafficked to the UK by criminal gangs who then sell them as slaves to work in nail bars, brothels, massage parlours and restaurants.

Murder detectives in Essex are still interviewing driver Maurice ‘Mo’ Robinson, 25, whose home in Markethill, Co Armagh, was raided last night before a team entered the nearby home he used to share with his parents, who have flown to England overnight to support their son. A third property in Armagh City was searched this morning.

MailOnline understands they are focussing on whether Robinson knew he was picking up dozens of immigrants from Purfleet docks on Tuesday night amid claims his HGV’s -25c chiller unit was switched on before he dialled 999 around 20 minutes later.

The migrants were huddled inside the super-chilled sound-proofed container for at least 15 hours by the time the door was opened by Mr Robinson on an industrial estate in Essex at 1.40am yesterday.

A friend told MailOnline today: ‘Mo is from the nicest family you could meet. I’m telling you now, he wouldn’t have known those people were in the back.

‘Apparently he’d parked up at the industrial estate in Essex and had gone to fetch the paperwork from a pocket on the inside of the lorry door.

‘When he opened the container up and saw all the dead bodies, he was absolutely horrified – as anyone would be – and called the ambulance service who in turn alerted the police. I heard the container was refrigerated – the temperature was -25C and the bodies were frozen and had been dead for some time.’

As police in Britain launched its biggest murder investigation since 7/7, this is what is known about the horrifying case:

• The 39 immigrants found frozen to death were all from China – 31 men and eight women, who may have been trafficked into the UK to work for criminal gangs;
• Devon and Cornwall police chief Shaun Sawyer, the national lead on people trafficking, says criminals see the UK as an ‘easy target’
• The victims may have travelled through Holland to the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium – where their container stayed for around an hour before being put on a shop where it arrived at 12.30am on Wednesday morning.
• Lorry driver ‘Mo’ Robinson, 25, dialled 999 30 minutes after pick-up having gone to get his cargo paperwork and finding the dead bodies inside, friend tells MailOnline; 
• Police have raided three properties in Northern Ireland, including the one he shares with his partner, who is expecting twins;

The Essex lorry disaster is the biggest tragedy of its kind since 2000, when 58 Chinese stowaways died on a ferry from Belgium to Britain.

Detectives are now looking into an Irish people smuggling ring which has links to the Bulgarian city of Varna, where the truck is registered to, and may have been moving human cargo from China between Zeebrugge and the Essex port of Purfleet due to increased security at Dover and Calais.

Varna, a port on the Black Sea, is ideal for traffickers because it has ferry links to Asia via Turkey, Georgia and Russia.

Experts yesterday said the temperature inside the refrigerated trailer unit, which is said to usually carry biscuits, might have been as low as -25C (-13F) when they perished. In reality, they could have been inside their metal coffin for much longer. Although paramedics reached the scene minutes after being called out, all they found was a pile of bodies.

Mo Robinson, who is expecting twins with his partner, called his lorry ‘the Polar Express’, having started working for himself around a year ago after leaving a larger haulier firm in Northern Ireland.

CCTV shows Robinson’s truck driving into the industrial estate in Essex at 1.10am on Wednesday and police arrived around half an hour later. Neither the nationality of the victims, nor the origin of the container is currently known.

The truck was removed from the scene yesterday afternoon, with the 39 victims still believed to be inside, as police begin the process of identifying them.

Investigations are ongoing and the latest pictures showed two properties in Northern Ireland being raided by police.  A third was searched this afternoon.

While several officers raided a property in Laurelvale, others were also seen outside a property in the Markethill area, where a van had been parked outside.

Other shots show the officers entering one of the properties and going inside.

In a statement Essex Police said there were eight women and 31 men among the 39 people found dead in a lorry trailer in Grays, Essex, on Wednesday.

The force, which said the case is the largest murder investigation in its history, said officers believe they are all Chinese nationals.

A statement said: ‘Of these, 38 are believed to be adults, and one is a young adult woman. We previously reported that she may have been a teenager. We have since confirmed that eight of the deceased are women and 31 are men and all are believed to be Chinese nationals. We arrested a man on suspicion of murder, who remains in custody.

‘We want to be clear – we have not speculated about the identity of this man, and we will not do so. We can confirm that three properties in County Armagh have been searched in connection with our investigation.

‘The lorry has since been removed from the industrial park to allow the next stage of our investigative process to be conducted in peace, and to give the utmost dignity to those within the trailer as we prepare for a coroner’s post-mortem examination.

‘Each of the 39 people must undergo a full coroner’s process to establish a cause of death, before we move on to attempting to identify each individual within the trailer. This will be a substantial operation and, at this stage, we cannot estimate how long these procedures will take.’

The force confirmed details about the movements of the lorry’s tractor, the front part including the driver’s cab.

The statement said: ‘Our lines of enquiry are extensive and will be thorough. This means that we might not have all the answers straight away. We do have some key facts, which are:

‘The tractor unit of the lorry had entered the country via Holyhead on Sunday 20 October, having travelled over from Dublin.

‘The lorry then collected the trailer, which had travelled from Zeebrugge, at the port of Purfleet at around 12.30am on the 23 October. The cab and trailer left the port shortly after 1.05am.

‘We were called to Waterglade Industrial Park in Eastern Avenue shortly before 1.40am on Wednesday 23 October by our colleagues in the East of England Ambulance Service to reports that 39 people had been found dead in the trailer of a lorry.’

Detectives now say the refrigerated trailer containing the victims arrived at Purfleet from Zeebrugge in Belgium at around 12.30am on Wednesday while the front section known as the tractor came from Northern Ireland.

The lorry and trailer left the port shortly after 1.05am and officers were called around 30 minutes later after ambulance staff made the grim discovery at Waterglade Industrial Park in Eastern Avenue in nearby Grays.

The vehicle driver, named in reports as 25-year-old Mo Robinson from Portadown in Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, is being held by Essex police on suspicion of murder.

Home Secretary Priti Patel tweeted: ‘This morning I met officers from Essex Police to express my thanks for their response to the tragic incident in Grays & receive an update on the investigation. I stand behind them as they continue their work to establish how this horrific event came to happen.’

The deaths follow warnings from the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Border Force of the increased risk of people-smuggling via Belgium and into quieter ports such as Purfleet.

The NCA previously said it had a ‘greater focus’ on rising smuggler numbers in Belgium after the closure of a migrant camp, and a Border Force assessment highlighted Zeebrugge as being among ‘key ports of embarkation for clandestine arrivals’.

The NCA has also warned that criminal networks are suspected to have started targeting quieter ports on the east and south coasts of the UK as well as the main Channel crossing between Calais and Dover.

Councillor Paul Berry said today the village of Laurelvale, where the Robinson family live, was in ‘complete shock’.

Mr Berry, who has been in contact with Mr Robinson’s father several times, said he learned of his son’s arrest through social media.

‘He had said he had been getting messages via people on social media on what was happening and at that stage it was not confirmed to him or his family that his son had been arrested,’ said the DUP representative.

‘In the local area the feeling is one of complete shock and hope this is not a true story in terms of his involvement.’

Mr Berry, who knows the father well, said the family were ‘very well respected’ in the area.

‘The local community is hoping that he (Mo Robinson) has been caught up innocently in this matter but that’s in the hands of Essex Police, and we will leave it in their professional hands to try to catch the perpetrators of this.’

He said the family had been left upset by the ‘unwelcome spotlight’ the incident had shone on them.

‘It was very distressing for the family as they just felt they were captive in their own home,’ he said.

Essex police began a murder inquiry yesterday as they attempted to establish who the migrants were and which country they had travelled from.

Like thousands of others before them, the group are thought to have sneaked inside the container at the busy Belgian shipping port of Zeebrugge, where row after row of rectangular metal containers are lined up ready to be transported to the UK.

Police are trying to establish when the group got inside and if smugglers found the container for them and then locked the door behind them.

The container was placed on a cargo ship on Tuesday, which then set sail around 2pm. The choppy Channel crossing took around ten hours before the ship docked at the Essex port of Purfleet on the Thames at 12.30am yesterday.

Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, said those inside would have frozen to death in horrendous conditions if the refrigeration had been switched on.

‘It’s going to be dark and if the fridge is running it’s going to be incredibly cold,’ he said.

‘The only place to go to the toilet is inside the container. You can imagine if they’ve been in there for days it would be pretty grim.’

On Tuesday night trucker Maurice ‘Mo’ Robinson, 25, was waiting inside his purple lorry cab at Purfleet docks for the container to be unloaded from the ship.

The self-employed haulier, who lives in the Northern Irish village of Laurelvale in County Armagh, drove out of the port 35 minutes later with it attached to his lorry.

He drove his Scania truck one mile to an industrial estate in Grays, Essex, where he arrived at 1.10am yesterday.

CCTV footage has emerged of the lorry driving towards the Waterglade Industrial Park minutes before the shocking discovery inside the container.

An ambulance control room then received a 999 call informing them of the bodies in the container. Last night police would not reveal if this call was made by Mr Robinson. The East of England Ambulance Service were the first to arrive. Five ambulances, hazardous area response teams and a car from the Essex and Herts Air Ambulance were all dispatched. Essex Police were then called. Minutes later, they arrested Mr Robinson on suspicion of murder.

He remained in police custody last night. Officers are trying to establish if he knew whether the migrants were inside.

The container was removed from the scene yesterday afternoon, with the 39 victims still inside. As it was driven away to a secure location with a police escort, other officers bowed their heads. Last night Mr Robinson’s shaken brother said the family had not heard from him and ‘don’t know what is going on’.

Mr Robinson is understood to have left the £300,000 home he shares with his pregnant girlfriend – who is said to be expecting twins – on Saturday morning.

He is thought to have driven his lorry cab to Dublin where he drove on to a ferry bound for Holyhead in Wales. Police yesterday confirmed that his lorry arrived on the mainland on Saturday.

It is not known what Mr Robinson did on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before picking up the container at Purfleet in the early hours of yesterday but at some point he drove the 300 miles to Essex before collecting the container.

His lorry cab is adorned with Celtic harps and the world ‘Ireland’ on the windscreen. Beneath it the phrase ‘the ultimate dream’ has been attached, with a dream catcher hanging inside the cab.

He regularly writes messages on Facebook and Instagram about his truck, referring to it as ‘the Scandinavian Express’ and ‘the Polar Express’.

He is thought to rent it, rather than own it. The lorry carries Bulgarian number plates and is a left-hand drive.

Bulgarian public broadcaster BNR said the lorry was registered in that country on June 19, 2017, by an unnamed Irish woman. It left the Balkan country the next day and has not returned since, according to the Bulgarian authorities.

The deaths will lead to renewed calls for added checks on vehicles entering Britain through so-called ‘soft spot’ ports, with Border Force resources currently focused on Dover.

Speaking on Wednesday afternoon, Deputy Chief Constable Pippa Mills said: ‘In order to ensure we maintain the dignity of the people who sadly lost their lives, we will be moving the lorry and the trailer shortly.’

She said they were being moved to nearby Tilbury Docks so the bodies can be recovered while preserving the dignity of the victims.

‘We are yet to identify them and must manage this sensitively with their families,’ she added.

Her comments come after politicians from all sides of the spectrum pledged to tackle the issues which had risen to the forefront of Prime Minister’s Question’s yesterday.

Boris Johnson has said that people traffickers ‘should be hunted down and brought to justice’. As Home Secretary Priti Patel has also pledged for tougher sentences for human traffickers.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions Mr Johnson said the situation was an ‘unimaginable tragedy and truly heartbreaking’.

Putting the Brexit crisis aside, he said the ‘full force of the law’ would come down on those responsible.

He added: ‘I know that the thoughts and prayers of all members will be with those who lost their lives and their loved ones. I’m receiving regular updates. The Home Office will work closely with Essex Police as we establish exactly what has happened.’

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also reflected on the tragedy, branding it ‘unbelievable’.

He said: ‘Can we just think for a moment of what it must have been like for those 39 people, obviously in a desperate and dangerous situation, for their lives to end, suffocated to death in a container?’

Ms Patel also highlighted that she would be happy to engage in discussions with the Ministry of Justice in order to see what could be done about the situation.

She said that ‘Home Office immigration officials will be working closely alongside them to establish how this horrific event came to happen.’

Alp Mehmet, the chairman of the group Migration Watch UK, called on the government to better patrol Britain’s borders to ensure such tragedies were not repeated.

He said: ‘People-trafficking is a sickening business. It continues not only because the traffickers make huge amounts of money from it but are also often able to get away with it.

‘The risk is that more such tragedies will occur for so long as the UK fails to properly resource the border and return those who have no right to be here, which all but encourages traffickers to ply their trade by exploiting people who put their lives in their evil hands.’

Despite the investigation being at an early stage and it being unclear where the victims died, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants has already blamed the British government.

The charity’s chief executive Satbir Singh said: ‘Nobody should be in any doubt that the ultimate responsibility for these deaths lies with government policy which has deliberately closed down safe and legal routes into Britain.’

Bulgarian foreign ministry spokesman Tsvetana Krasteva said: ‘We are in contact with our embassy in London and with British authorities.’

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said: ‘We are aware of this tragic incident which is now the subject of a murder investigation being led by Essex Police and we have deployed NCA officers to assist.

‘We are working with partners including Essex Police and Immigration Enforcement to provide specialist support to urgently identify and take action against any organised crime groups who might have played a role in causing these deaths.’

In 2015, 71 migrants, including eight women and four children, were found dead in the back of a Slovakian meat lorry which was abandoned truck on an Austrian motorway.

The industrial estate where the lorry was found on Wednesday is next to the Dartford Crossing and is used as a stopping point for lorries travelling south to the Port of Dover and the Channel Tunnel, although the planned route of the lorry involved is unknown.