Grays lorry deaths: Marius Mihai Draghici jailed for 12 years for deaths of 39 migrants

The ringleader of a people-smuggling gang has been jailed for 12 years and seven months for the manslaughter of 39 men, women and children who were found dead in a lorry trailer.

Marius Mihai Draghici, 50, was detained by police in Romania last August and charged with 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

The bodies of the Vietnamese nationals were found in the container in Grays, Essex, which had been transported by ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Purfleet early on 23 October, 2019.

The victims had hoped for a better life in Britain when they agreed to pay up to £13,000 a head for a “VIP” smuggling service.

On 22 October 2019, they were crammed into the lorry container to be shipped in pitch black and sweltering conditions and the Old Bailey has heard how they desperately tried to raise the alarm as they ran out of air before reaching British shores.

On Tuesday 11 July, prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones KC said the victims had suffocated in an air tight container en route across the Channel.

He said: "Their last hours must have entailed unimaginable suffering and anguish.

"The prosecution case is that Draghici became party to a sophisticated, long-running and highly profitable conspiracy to smuggle illegal migrants to the United Kingdom, in the back of lorries, in a deliberate and intentional breach of border control."

The defendant was recruited by fellow Romanian Gheorghe Nica, who was previously tried and convicted of involvement in the deaths, and they became "entirely inseparable".

Mr Emlyn Jones said: "Migrants were loaded into the trailers of lorries that travelled, unaccompanied, on ferries to the United Kingdom.

"The trailers were collected and driven to Collingwood Farm; a remote location in Orsett, Essex.

"From there, the migrants were unloaded and driven on to their ultimate destination."

A Vietnamese man who had made the journey himself, referred to as Witness X, had previously given evidence about how the conspiracy operated, the court was told.

Four others were jailed in 2021 for between 13 and 27 years for the manslaughter of the 39 migrants.

Lorry driver Maurice Robinson found the migrants, two aged just 15, dead when he collected the trailer from the docks early the next morning.

Sentencing, Mr Justice Garnham said Draghici had become involved in a people smuggling conspiracy making "astonishing profits out of the exploitation of people desperate to get to the UK".

Conditions inside the container where the 39 victims died were "unspeakable" with "people trapped inside the trailer with no ventilation and no way of getting out", the judge said.

Some of the victims had attempted to make a hole in the trailer with a metal pole with no success, he said.

The senior judge said he had also heard the "pitiful audio recordings" of those trapped inside "reporting they could not breathe and a growing recognition they were going to die there".

He said the statements from the victims' loved-ones were "heart-wrenching".

The judge described Draghici as organiser Gheorghe Nica's "right-hand man" - "a small but essential cog in the wheels of this conspiracy".

Robinson, 28, of Craigavon, and his boss Ronan Hughes, 43, of Armagh, had admitted plotting to people smuggle and 39 counts of manslaughter.

Hughes’s partner in crime Gheorghe Nica, 46, of Basildon, Essex, and Eamonn Harrison, 26, of County Down, who had collected the victims on the continent, were found guilty of the offences.

At a sentencing hearing at the Old Bailey, Robinson, who also admitted money laundering, was jailed for 13 years and four months in jail, Hughes was sentenced to 20 years in prison, Nica to 27 years and Harrison to 18 years.

Other members of the gang were also jailed in the same hearing for their role in the organised criminal operation.

Lorry driver Christopher Kennedy, 26, of County Armagh, was jailed for seven years; Valentin Calota, 40, from Birmingham, was handed four-and-a-half years; and Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 31, from Essex, was sentenced to three years in custody.

The court had heard the operation was long-running and profitable, with the smugglers standing to make more than a million pounds in October 2019 alone.

A total of seven smuggling trips were identified between May 2018 and October 23 2019, although the court heard that there were likely to have been more.

Migrants would board lorries at a remote location on the continent to be transported to Britain where they would be picked up by a fleet of smaller vehicles organised by Nica for transfer to a safe house until payment was received.

The fee was between £10,000 and £13,000, for the "VIP route" in which the driver was aware of the presence of smuggled migrants inside the trailer attached to his lorry.

Some of the trips were thwarted by border officials and residents in Orsett, Essex, who had repeatedly reported migrants being dropped off to the police.

Yet the smuggling operation was not stopped until after the tragic journey.

The families of the victims in Vietnam and Britain spoke at a previous sentencing.

Phan Thi Thanh, 41, had sold the family home and left her son with his godmother before setting off on the ill-fated journey.

Her “heartbroken” son said: “I heard about the incident from mass media so I called dad in the UK in order to confirm if mum was a victim.

“I was very shocked, very sad and I was crying a lot.”

Tran Hai Loc and his wife Nguyen Thi Van, both 35, who were found huddled together in death, left two children aged six and four.

The children’s grandfather Tran Dinh Thanh said: “Everyday, when they come home from school they always look at the photos of their parents on the altar.

“The decease of both parents is a big loss to them.”

Fifteen-year-old Nguyen Huy Hung’s UK-based father Nguyen Huy Tung learned about his death on social media.

He said: “We were very shocked, trembled, we lost track and awareness of our surroundings.

“My wife had fainted many times whenever our son’s name was mentioned.”

– The 39 victims were:

Dinh Dinh Binh, Nguyen Minh Quang, Nguyen Huy Phong, Le Van Ha, Nguyen Van Hiep, Bui Phan Thang, Nguyen Van Hung, Nguyen Huy Hung, Nguyen Tien Dung, Pham Thi Tra My, Tran Khanh Tho, Nguyen Van Nhan, Vo Ngoc Nam, Vo Van Linh, Nguyen Ba Vu Hung, Vo Nhan Du, Tran Hai Loc, Tran Manh Hung, Nguyen Thi Van, Bui Thi Nhung, Hoang Van Tiep, Tran Thi Ngoc, Phan Thi Thanh, Tran Thi Tho, Duong Minh Tuan, Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh, Tran Thi Mai Nhung, Le Trong Thanh, Nguyen Ngoc Ha, Hoang Van Hoi, Tran Ngoc Hieu, Cao Tien Dung, Dinh Dinh Thai Quyen, Dang Huu Tuyen, Nguyen Dinh Luong , Cao Huy Thanh, Nguyen Trong Thai, Nguyen Tho Tuan and Nguyen Dinh Tu.

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