Six men found in Cambridgeshire lorry container after desperate 999 call warning 'We can't breathe'

Six men were found in a lorry trailer after police received a desperate 999 call from someone warning them: "We can't breathe".

Cambridgeshire Police said they received a curtailed 999 call from a person in the trailer of a refrigerated articulated lorry travelling on the M11 into the county on Tuesday.

The caller told police that they could not breathe, before the call dropped out.

The control room used a specialist app to track the location of the moving lorry and officers managed to catch up with it on the A142 between Ely and Soham.

Six men were found in the trailer, having travelled from France earlier in the morning.

All the men were checked over by the ambulance service.

They were then taken into custody in relation to immigration offences.

The UK Border Agency has launched an investigation.

In 2019 the bodies of 39 Vietnamese men, women and children were found in a lorry in Essex after being transported in an airtight container from Belgium to Purfleet.

Romanian Gheorghe Nica, 46, was jailed for 27 years for the manslaughter of the victims.

Nica was one of five gang members jailed for the manslaughters, with others convicted of people-smuggling.

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