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Merged Murder investigation in UK after 39 people found dead in lorry container

cullennz said:
As much as I love your hysteria I was in England in 2000 and other years when massive fuel shortages were going on, truck drivers were doing blockades and people were panic buying.

Queues to petrol stations were about 1/2 a mile long

The economy didn't collapse
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One anecdote versus a detailed, scientific study, I wonder which has more credibility...
:rolleyes:
 
Nessie said:
In the case of the refrigerated lorry, it would have taken seconds to open the door and look inside.

By making drivers more responsible for their load, the onus is on them not just to do a reasonable check of the load (if the lorry is packed with crates, I would not expect it to be unloaded and all the crates opened. I would also not expect to miss 10 people lying on top of the crates) but also to be more questioning about its origins, the paperwork, the possibility it is being used for smuggling.

As it is, if this driver is charged and his defence is that he did not know, but he gets convicted, then it very much in the interests of all drivers to be more careful.

If his defence of he did not know works, then sadly we have all drivers with an alliby and they can now turn a blind eye to a horrific crime. That is disgusting.
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Assuming there was no wall of legitimate looking boxes.
So, if your idea was implemented, how will theft and smuggling be handled given that the current system of seals will be rendered useless?
 
smartcooky said:
I'm not getting this. The driver was in possession of the container for 35 minutes. The container would have been already sealed for hours before he hooked it up to his tractor, so it is very unlikely that the 39 people were alive in the container for all those hours beforehand, and all suddenly up and died in the 35 minutes between when he hooked the container to his tractor and when he stopped and opened the container.

If they were already dead, how can he be physically respnsible for their deaths?
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Yes it does look rather odd, especially given the murder arrest. Perhaps the CoD was hypothermia and the cooling was activated by him.
 
catsmate said:
Assuming there was no wall of legitimate looking boxes.
So, if your idea was implemented, how will theft and smuggling be handled given that the current system of seals will be rendered useless?
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How are immigrants getting round the seals? If it is easy to unseal and then reseal lorries then maybe we should be looking to change the system.

Now the driver has been charged, maybe that will make other drivers think more about their role, unintended or not, in people smuggling.
 
catsmate said:
Yes it does look rather odd, especially given the murder arrest. Perhaps the CoD was hypothermia and the cooling was activated by him.
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From the CPS site on charging (D2 is a person who acts as an accessory or secondary party);

""Manslaughter
D2 will not be guilty of murder but will be guilty of manslaughter where:
D2 is a party to a violent attack on another without an intent to assist in causing death or really serious harm, but the violence escalates and results in death.
D2 participates by encouragement or assistance in any other unlawful act which all sober and reasonable people would realise carried the risk of some harm (not necessarily serious) to another, and death results. The test is objective."

Knowingly assisting in the transporting of people trapped inside a refrigerated tractor unit who have been there for hours clearly meets the charging test for manslaughter.
 
Nessie said:
The CPS website is blank when it comes to joint enterprise;

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidan...ns-principal-secondary-and-inchoate-liability

There is doubt over joint enterprise;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35598896

The CPS instead has secondary liability;

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidan...charging-decisions-principals-and-accessories

"The guidance sets out how charging decisions are to be approached in cases involving persons who assist or encourage another to commit a crime. These persons are known as accessories or secondary parties."

"Manslaughter
D2 will not be guilty of murder but will be guilty of manslaughter where:
D2 is a party to a violent attack on another without an intent to assist in causing death or really serious harm, but the violence escalates and results in death.
D2 participates by encouragement or assistance in any other unlawful act which all sober and reasonable people would realise carried the risk of some harm (not necessarily serious) to another, and death results. The test is objective."

D2 is an accessory or secondary party.
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Maybe they changed the law then. I know that joint enterprise was held to be responsible for a number of miscarriages of justice.
 
Rolfe said:
Maybe they changed the law then. I know that joint enterprise was held to be responsible for a number of miscarriages of justice.
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There was a change in interpretation of the law recently.

I just realised Nessie already posted the link.


I'm not sure if it would relate to the current case as it appears to affect the issue of foresight.
 
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Nessie said:
The CPS website is blank when it comes to joint enterprise;

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidan...ns-principal-secondary-and-inchoate-liability

There is doubt over joint enterprise;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35598896

The CPS instead has secondary liability;

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidan...charging-decisions-principals-and-accessories

"The guidance sets out how charging decisions are to be approached in cases involving persons who assist or encourage another to commit a crime. These persons are known as accessories or secondary parties."

"Manslaughter
D2 will not be guilty of murder but will be guilty of manslaughter where:
D2 is a party to a violent attack on another without an intent to assist in causing death or really serious harm, but the violence escalates and results in death.
D2 participates by encouragement or assistance in any other unlawful act which all sober and reasonable people would realise carried the risk of some harm (not necessarily serious) to another, and death results. The test is objective."

D2 is an accessory or secondary party.
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There is a report on joint enterprise by the TBIJ here:

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.c...-the-report-joint-enterprise-an-investigation

The three CPS principles are on page 11. This predates the Supreme Court ruling you linked to, but I'm not sure if that fundamentally changes the principles or just affects the role of foresight.
 
In many USA states, he could be charged with "felony murder" -- being part of a crime in which a death occurred, even though he didn't directly cause it. People have been charged with that even when the death was that of their criminal partner who was shot by the police.
I'd guess in this case he knew he was picking up immigrants and found them dead when he stopped to let them out.
 
Nessie said:
From the CPS site on charging (D2 is a person who acts as an accessory or secondary party);

""Manslaughter
D2 will not be guilty of murder but will be guilty of manslaughter where:
D2 is a party to a violent attack on another without an intent to assist in causing death or really serious harm, but the violence escalates and results in death.
D2 participates by encouragement or assistance in any other unlawful act which all sober and reasonable people would realise carried the risk of some harm (not necessarily serious) to another, and death results. The test is objective."

Knowingly assisting in the transporting of people trapped inside a refrigerated tractor unit who have been there for hours clearly meets the charging test for manslaughter.
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He was looking at a mass murder charge originally so it appears the driver has satisfied police he personally did not contribute directly to the deaths and that the event happened before reaching Purfleet.

He is looking at fourteen years inside despite immediately calling the emergency services and seeking help.
 
Trebuchet said:
In many USA states, he could be charged with "felony murder" -- being part of a crime in which a death occurred, even though he didn't directly cause it. People have been charged with that even when the death was that of their criminal partner who was shot by the police.
I'd guess in this case he knew he was picking up immigrants and found them dead when he stopped to let them out.
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People in the UK have been done for manslaughter simply for providing a service which negligently led to death. For example, kiddie bouncy castles,Network Rail (some of my work colleagues were on that Leeds train that overturned, thankfully all right).
 
How poor is the quality of the press these days. It reported:

- the driver was one of the UK's 'worse mass murderers'

- the victims must have been Bulgarians as the vehicle was registered in Bulgaria

- the victims must be Chinese because they look it

- the above assumption has led to long articles about 'snakehead' gangsters from China and past notorious Chinese people smugglers

- on hearing the victims may actually be Vietnamese, the tabloids quickly discovered a bunch of Vietnamese refuges at Calais looking for passage to England.
 
Vixen said:
How poor is the quality of the press these days. It reported:

- the driver was one of the UK's 'worse mass murderers'

- the victims must have been Bulgarians as the vehicle was registered in Bulgaria

- the victims must be Chinese because they look it

- the above assumption has led to long articles about 'snakehead' gangsters from China and past notorious Chinese people smugglers

- on hearing the victims may actually be Vietnamese, the tabloids quickly discovered a bunch of Vietnamese refuges at Calais looking for passage to England.
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Personally think the driver is obviously not a murderer, but should at least look in the truck before driving off, given the "wall of boxes" scenario post earlier hiding people was pants.

He ended up opening the trailer. Looking at 39 dead people and ringing 999 from what I read
 
Rolfe said:
Maybe they changed the law then. I know that joint enterprise was held to be responsible for a number of miscarriages of justice.
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It was just somewhere in my fading memory that there had been an issue over joint enterprise, which was why I was not sure about the initial reports that he was arrested under suspicion for manslaughter.
 
Vixen said:
How poor is the quality of the press these days. It reported:

- the driver was one of the UK's 'worse mass murderers'

- the victims must have been Bulgarians as the vehicle was registered in Bulgaria

- the victims must be Chinese because they look it

- the above assumption has led to long articles about 'snakehead' gangsters from China and past notorious Chinese people smugglers

- on hearing the victims may actually be Vietnamese, the tabloids quickly discovered a bunch of Vietnamese refuges at Calais looking for passage to England.
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Add to that suggestions it was a Bulgarian gang doing the smuggling. The press coverage has been very poor.

It now looks like it was a Northern Irish gang, using a Bulgarian cover to smuggle Vietnamese people.
 
Nessie said:
Add to that suggestions it was a Bulgarian gang doing the smuggling. The press coverage has been very poor.

It now looks like it was a Northern Irish gang, using a Bulgarian cover to smuggle Vietnamese people.
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It's been a textbox example of the press managing to weave a whole heap of inconsequential details together to fill column inches, because they can't get any real accurate information. "X lives in a £X00,000 house... their business has a turnover/profit of £X,000... Holidays abroad... etc." All the "journalists" have done is checked the Land Registry and Companies House, and got as close to the social media accounts of those involved as possible. Most of us here could collate and throw together this sort of stuff.
 
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