TODAY marks the two year anniversary since 39 bodies were found in the back of a lorry in Grays.
The discovery became the UK’s worst migrant tragedy in nearly two decades after lorry driver Maurice Robinson opened his sealed container at the Waterglade Industrial Park to find the migrants dead.
Men, women and children, aged between 15 and 44, from Vietnam, had suffocated after being contained within an airtight unit for nearly 12 hours in total darkness.
The migrants had paid people smugglers more than £10,000 each to travel to England in the unit which saw internal temperatures rise to 38.5 degrees Celsius during the crossing from Belgium to Purfleet.
The horrific tragedy saw a huge police investigation launched, which led to seven people smugglers receiving a combined total of 92 years in jail.
Haulier boss Ronan Hughes, 41, of Co Armagh in Northern Ireland, and Maurice Robinson, 26, of Craigavon in Northern Ireland, the driver of the lorry at the time of the discovery, admitted 39 counts of manslaughter.
Ronan Hughes, 41, and Gheorghe Nica, 43, played "leading roles" in the smuggling conspiracy and were jailed for 20 and 27 years respectively.
Christopher Kennedy, 24, from County Armagh, was jailed for seven years; Valentin Calota, 38, of Birmingham, for four-and-a-half years; and Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 28, of Hobart Road, Tilbury, Essex, was given a three-year sentence.
The trial in London’s Old Bailey court earlier this year examined three smuggling attempts by the gang - two which were successful on October 11 and 18, and the final trip on October 23.
On all three runs, Nica, of Basildon, Essex, had arranged cars and a van to transport the migrants at the UK end.
When Robinson discovered the bodies, there was a series of telephone conversations between him and Nica and Hughes, before the driver eventually dialled 999.
In his evidence, Nica said Robinson told him: "I have a problem here - dead bodies in the trailer."
During what was described as an “excruciatingly painful” death, the victims had used a metal pole to try to punch through the roof but only managed to dent the interior.
During the trial, the court heard some of their final desperate phone messages, including one where a man spoke with ragged breaths as he apologised to his family.
Det Ch Insp Daniel Stoten said the victims died in an "unimaginable way, because of the utter greed of these criminals".
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