Today in History October 23 | Truck driver's horror to find 39 bodies behind him
October 23
On October 23, 2019, Maurice Robinson began to notice a strange smell coming from the trailer he was hauling behind his truck.
Opening the rear doors, he discovered the bodies of 39 Vietnamese who had been caught up in a human trafficking operation.
Emergency services rushed to the scene, but all 39 people - including 31 males and eight females - were deceased, likely from suffocation or hypothermia.
Among the deceased were 10 teenagers, the youngest of whom were just 15.
Police said the trailer was designed to be refrigerated and was airtight, which meant the migrants only had the oxygen they were locked in with to breathe.
An extensive police investigation began, with four ringleaders, including Ronan Hughes (right), being jailed over the deaths in 2021.
During court proceedings it was established that Hughes stood to make at least £90,000 ($174,735).
The bodies of two cousins, Nguyen Van Hung and Hoang Van Tiep, were among 39 Vietnamese people discovered in the back of the trailer.
Each of the migrants were believed to have paid £13,000 ($25,239) to be illegally transported into England.
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