Horrific news

Putfleet is very small compared to the new and extremely modern London Gateway Terminal just up the road in Tilbury. Perhaps this is why the traffickers picked Purfleet?

If the driver knew he had human beings in the container he picked up he thoroughly deserves to go on trial for murder, or the very least manslaughter.

I agree it’s part of the picture Urm . I was just trying to bring some balance into the picture. The BF is only a relatively small part of that picture anyway - much work is done internationally across the globe to prevent the smuggling/trafficking long before it gets anywhere near our shores. As I said there’s always more that could be done but quite frankly mot of us posting on here haven’t a clue about what is being done. It’s like with terrorism - the Met announced figures the other day for the number of attacks prevented/thwarted just to remind us I suppose.

Fair point suziewoozie I’m sure BF do their very best with what resources are to hand. Cutbacks due to austerity measures by Gideon can’t have helped though.

Our borders are apparently pretty porous right now and departments are understaffed.

its

Auto-correct thinks it knows best

Gabriella 24 Oct 0020:28

Good question; I wonder if the lorry driver had played his part and someone else was then due to take over who then failed to appear, leaving these poor people to their fate.

No doubt this will all become clearer and the traffickers behind this will be traced. Apparently the lorry was registered in Bulgaria although it may never have visited there and owned by a woman in Ireland.

Unfortunately this will not be the only operation of it's kind and, unless more is done, more tragedies like this will occur.

What happens to those who are successfully trafficked in? What kind of misery awaits them here? Most of us can only imagine, it won't be the kind of life they envisaged.

A Chief Constable was on R4 this morning and he made the fair comment that maybe we should just consider in and among the predictable criticisms, how many people had actually been saved, how much people smuggling/traficking had been prevented by the hard work and dedication of various international bodies, NGOs, police forces across the world and so on

Yesterday a former head of the BF also made the point that lessons aren’t just learned by one side - the villains learn as well and develop their next steps and strategies based on this ( just like the financial fraudsters do) This overall ( don’t know of course about this specific example ) is a hugely profitable, well organised area of criminal activity with suspected links to drugs/ illegal arms etc. Of course more could be done - give me any example of human endeavour, activity and organisation where we have reached the pinnacle of perfection. (Except of course in online keyboard criticism of those out there actually trying to make the world a better safer place for us)

That was horrendous Annie and I remember crying over that too.

And the usual parroted phrase Urmstongran :
" Lessons will be learned "-----------------------When ?? How ??

Brought back the memory of the Chinese cockle pickers who drown in Morecambe Bay

It is not just Britain’s problem either — continental Europe has witnessed its own horrors. In 2015, 71 men, women and children were discovered dead in Austria in an abandoned truck which had come from Serbia. One of the victims, Lida Rahm, was less than a year old.

Every time there is a grisly body count, there is that equally gruesome ritual when politicians and pundits line up to express grief and promise to stop it ever recurring.

A tragic thing to happen. How those poor people must have suffered, locked into a refrigerated container with panic setting in.

Last night police in Northern Ireland raided two rural homes seven miles apart in Co Armagh.

Detectives are now looking into an Irish people smuggling ring which has links to the Bulgarian city of Varna, where the truck is registered to, and may have been moving human cargo between Zeebrugge and the Essex port of Purfleet due to increased security at Dover and Calais.

Part of me wonders if the driver just picked up what he thought was an empty trailer as does happen because there are many of these trailers kept in compounds at ports under lock and key and have cameras fixed. Nobody knows what's in any of these trailers.

Then we have the other aspect as to whether he did know and where large sums of money changed hands in a trafficking cartel for use in the insidious slave industry we very shamefully have in this " supposed " civilised country.

I await what crime has been committed which has involved all these poor souls. It horrifies and upsets me immensely.

Rowantree an excellent , compassionate post

I had wondered why this lorry drove all the way across country to Essex...now we know. It's unfortunate that people have died, but this incident has revealed just what is happening. These people may have been intended as slave workers, or they may have been part of an organised gang of criminals.

We don't yet know why those poor people were in the lorry at all, so it's far to early to call them 'immigrants'. They might be trafficked people. Whatever the reason for them being there, it's a terrible way to die and utterly inhuman of whoever was responsible for sealing them up in the lorry.
Gabriella it might help to remember that for some desperate people - possibly these, but we don't yet know - the UK is indeed Nirvana. We don't live in a war zone; disease and poverty, though they exist, are not the norm. Some people's lives are so unbearable they feel they have little choice, so they risk their lives, hoping for something better. There will always be those who will exploit that fear and desperation and make money out of it - we all know it's widespread. It's unlikely the perpetrators will be caught and even if they were, there are plenty more ready to risk the lives of terrified people or traffic them into slavery.

I'm sure I read that more people have been found, unharmed, in Kent.

Lorry drivers interviewed on TV said they frequently see groups of people jumping out of lorries and running away. A taxi driver said he would be approached by a migrant with a mobile phone, and the person on the phone would tell the driver where to take him, usually in London.

We need to realise this is going on all the time, and we have no idea how many people are getting in this way. It's only when a major tragedy occurs that we are made aware. There may even be others in containers who have never been discovered. It's a disgusting horrible business, with people dying and our country being invaded under our noses. They need to deal with it urgently.

Why would the driver have taken the container to Thurrock, a busy business park and a mere mile from the pick up point, if it was he who was responsible for the fate of those inside?
It doesn't stand to reason.
If he knew what was inside, he would be daft to involve himself after all, he has a wife pregnant with twins and a jail sentence of decades would be the punishment.

I certainly am looking forward to the explanations which follow the enquiry and make no apologies.
How many will be 'eagerly' as opposed to 'reluctantly' opening their newspapers or turning on the news to follow this story.
The thread(s) here and elsewhere will bear witness to the interest, it's just that I'm more honest and open about wanting to know the explanations.

growstuff why on earth is that long post addressed to me?
what conclusions have I or anyone else jumped to?

I don't think anybody should be looking forward to anything connected with this.

Many other EU countries are far far larger than the UK and more able to have the room to house and support refugees.

They are also not as generous...and that is why we're looked on as being softies.

I'm looking forward to reading the explanation as to how the accused is supposed to have murdered those victims in the space of 30 minutes, whilst driving from Purfleet to Thurrock.

petra. I know what you mean, we always point out the vessels coming up the Thames Estuary to the GC.

I enjoyed watching the container ships coming into the river on their way to Purfleet. Educating the Grandchildren as to where they'd come from with their cargo.

I don't think I'm going to do this for a while. It won't feel the same, knowing what I now know.