Haulier pleads guilty to manslaughter of migrants found in container
Haulier Ronan Hughes, 40, of Co Armagh, has pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to the manslaughter of 39 people who were found dead in a container in Essex last October.
The bodies of the Vietnamese migrants were discovered in a refrigerated trailer parked on an industrial estate in Grays, Essex, on 23 October last year after it had been shipped to the UK from Belgium.
The consignment had been falsely declared as biscuits.
Among the men, women and children were ten teenagers, two of them 15-year-old boys.
The court heard the victims died from a lack of oxygen between 8pm and 10pm after they had entered UK territorial waters.
Hughes was one of several men accused of being part of a people-smuggling ring linked to the deaths of the 39 migrants.
Eamonn Harrison, from Mayobridge in Co Down, has pleaded not guilty to 39 counts of manslaughter over the incident.
The driver of the lorry when it was found on an industrial estate in Essex to the east of London – Maurice Robinson from Co Armagh – had already pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges.
