‘We can’t let this happen again’: The day police found 39 bodies in a lorry

Ch Supt Hooper remembers: ‘It was a crisp morning and the air was cold; you could see your breath when you spoke. But when I got to the scene, it was as though time stood till. Taking in the sight of all the bodies, it hits you; the magnitude of the situation.’

It was a horrendous find for the officers first on the scene and was to be among the most traumatic moments of their career. As they peered into the open doors of the truck, there was a moment of silence as they stood in disbelief. Bodycam footage from the time shows one of them exclaim ‘Jesus Christ’, while flashing blue lights illuminated the steam emanating from the top of the truck.

‘There was no space to put your feet in the lorry, but they climbed on board in a pitch black, and went through with dignity and respect and checked to see who was alive and if they could administer first aid.’

The lorry contained the bodies of 39 people; 28 men, eight women and two 15-year-old boys. With no documents, the police were unable to identify them or notify their families. A police diagram from the time is grim; numbered figures overlap, showing where the unidentified had died.

The lorry, which had travelled from Zeebrugge in Belgium to the Port of Purfleet in Essex was taken to a nearby warehouse to begin the identification process. It was at first assumed that the occupants had frozen to death, but the evidence later showed something quite different.

Analysis of the lorry’s monitoring system found that when the victims sent their final messages, the temperature had reached 38.5 degrees and marks to the interior suggested they had used a metal pole to try to punch through the roof.

Robinson, who had denied any knowledge of people being in the trailer, was arrested and taken in for questioning. After discovering his discarded burner phone and analysing his sim card, detectives linked Robinson and his boss Ronan Hughes with nine others in the UK and 18 people in France.

The investigation’s breakthrough came with the discovery of a fingerprint in one of Hughes’ lorries that belonged to a Vietnamese migrant who had made the journey alive just a week earlier.

‘The driver helped all of us to get into the back of the lorry. I could feel the lorry start to move. There was no light in the back of the lorry. There was a bucket in the corner for going to the toilet. The journey across the channel took around eight hours. Some of the people in the container went to sleep. I didn’t; I stayed awake the whole journey. It was around nine or 10am when the door of the container opened and we saw daylight for the first time.’

Witness X’s journey was the same as the 39 – except that he shared his with just 14 others. His testimony, alongside the analysis of CCTV, phone records and digital evidence, diligent intelligence and surveillance work alongside a number of international agencies meant that by 2020 Essex Police had enough evidence to start bringing cases to trial.

Since the convictions, Ch Supt Hooper has paid tribute to the thousands of police officers, members of staff, volunteers and others whose hard work saw such a successful result, but in the years since he has tried to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.

‘The scale of loss of human life was phenomenal and that’s the bit that always lived with me. People were used as a commodity; just like in drugs and firearms. So how do we make sure an investigation of this size and scale never happens again?’

The force has worked closely with the haulage industry and large companies around training, identifying how people might have come to hide in lorries and ensuring they have the technology to hinder human traffickers’ efforts, he explains. Alongside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office it has worked with Vietnamese authorities on education and deterrence. Essex Police has also overhauled the investigation model for police forces investigating people smuggling and worked with the industry to change designs of refrigerated lorries to include ventilation.

Ch Supt Hooper has been to Vietnam twice to work with the families, most recently to return the victims belongings to their loved ones, and he was moved deeply when he listened to the despairing messages left on family members’ phones from inside the lorry.

‘When we went back this year to conclude the investigation with the families and thank the Vietnamese authorities for their support, there was a sense of closure that you could see in the families. They thanked us for the work we’d done, even in everything that they’d been through. They were grateful for the dignity and respect with which we treated family members during the investigation. Early on, our chief had signed a book of condolences and promised that we would deliver justice, and that’s what we went back to say; justice promised, justice delivered.’