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

Information Analyst said:
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... Holidas 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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Yes. I saw this first hand when a friend and work-colleague died. The press described him as (IIRC) a London company director. He was an IT support specialist, he happened to be a joint owner of a plane which was registered to a company for financial reasons; the press obviously found documentation of the latter, but not the former. I think part of the problem is that everything is presented as fact, when there is often doubt and speculation.


Anyway, some of the inaccuracies were understandable. Few of the victims were carrying papers, but I think I heard it reported that some of them had (forged) Chinese ones. At the moment, I don't think any have been identified.
 
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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Felony Murder doesn't exist in the UK or Ireland, having been abolished decades ago.
 
cullennz said:
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
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The container was sealed. A driver is not expected to, nor allowed, to break such seals.
 
There is no way that they just quietly froze to death inside the container. At some point they must have realised they were in danger and tried to get out or make noises to get help.
 
If the text message I saw is legit (it may not be, I struggle to see how a legitimate message would have reached the public domain at this stage), they suffocated rather than froze.

However, I think the timings suggest that they were already dead before he took custody of the container, in which case he's not the one who would have been ignoring the cries for help.
 
Ah, so it is legit. I took it at face value when I saw it but when people started asking if it was verified I realised I had no idea. Poor girl. Poor family.
 
cullennz said:
Personally think the driver is obviously not a murderer, but should at least look in the truck before driving off
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You really do seems clueless when it comes to things in real life, don't you.

What could the driver possibly achieve by looking in the back of this truck?

back_of_truck.jpg


Do you expect him to get a forklift and unload every pallet, and then open each box to make sure its contents match the truck's bill of lading, or to make sure there are not boxes of drugs, stolen goods or other contraband inside, or to check that there are not people being smuggled in front of the wall of pallets. Remember, at this point, any people in there would want to be smuggled, they will stay very, very quiet, so you would have to unload most of the boxes to find them.

cullennz said:
...given the "wall of boxes" scenario post earlier hiding people was pants.
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Err, the "wall of boxes" scenario is NOT pants!! Hiding people between or behind stacks of cargo on the back of a truck is a very common way to smuggle them across borders.

https://nypost.com/2019/07/04/white-house-shares-image-of-immigrants-crammed-into-truck/

xray-truck1.png


xray-truck2.jpg


xray-truck3.jpg


For heaven's sake, get a bloody clue before you post!
 
Getting drivers to check loads, as much as they possibly can, increases the likelihood of detection and could save lives. Just because in some cases people are well hidden and would be likely to be missed in a basic visual check, does not mean no checks should be done at all.
 
smartcooky said:
You really do seems clueless when it comes to things in real life, don't you.

What could the driver possibly achieve by looking in the back of this truck?

[qimg]https://www.dropbox.com/s/9aoc6c9xjhnm4na/back_of_truck.jpg?raw=1[/qimg]

Do you expect him to get a forklift and unload every pallet, and then open each box to make sure its contents match the truck's bill of lading, or to make sure there are not boxes of drugs, stolen goods or other contraband inside, or to check that there are not people being smuggled in front of the wall of pallets. Remember, at this point, any people in there would want to be smuggled, they will stay very, very quiet, so you would have to unload most of the boxes to find them.



Err, the "wall of boxes" scenario is NOT pants!! Hiding people between or behind stacks of cargo on the back of a truck is a very common way to smuggle them across borders.

https://nypost.com/2019/07/04/white-house-shares-image-of-immigrants-crammed-into-truck/

[qimg]https://www.dropbox.com/s/ehhes9311o5i83y/xray-truck1.png?raw=1[/qimg]

[qimg]https://www.dropbox.com/s/lnxf0ckmwet86jm/xray-truck2.jpg?raw=1[/qimg]

[qimg]https://www.dropbox.com/s/08via69yrcwbydx/xray-truck3.jpg?raw=1[/qimg]

For heaven's sake, get a bloody clue before you post!
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I meant in this case, which is why I went on to specifically say what happened in this case
 
Nessie said:
Getting drivers to check loads, as much as they possibly can, increases the likelihood of detection and could save lives. Just because in some cases people are well hidden and would be likely to be missed in a basic visual check, does not mean no checks should be done at all.
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On the other hand, the way the police investigation appears to be going suggests that the people were not stowaways and that at least one of the drivers was aware they were there; in that case mandating checks wouldn't have made much difference. It may be that the driver who brought the trailer to England was in the dark, and that's why the tragedy occurred, in which case you do have a point.
 
A lot of trailers are sent across on their own, loaded and unloaded from the ship with small 'donkey' tractors that belong to the port.
they will be dropped by one driver and picked up by a different driver and tractor at the other end.
Teesport gets two Roro ships a day that work in that manner. They are spartan things compared to what you typically think of as a Roro ferry, trailers can be packed quite tight aboard them.
 
Nessie said:
What customs seals?
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The customs seals on the back of containers that are being shipped/trucked across borders.

You cannot just make up some rule and say that this driver should have done this. You would have to apply that rule to EVERY driver picking up EVERY container or backload, EVERY time they pick one up. You would be asking drivers to break the law (it is illegal for any unauthorised person to break any kind of seal on a container). AT worst, he could be prosecuted for tampering with and HM Customs security device - at best, he could be help personlly responsible for anythng on the waybill hat was found to be missing from the shipment. He could lose his job, or his onctract
 
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smartcooky said:
The customs seals on the back of containers that are being shipped/trucked across borders.

You cannot just make up some rule and say that this driver should have done this. You would have to apply that rule to EVERY driver picking up EVERY container or backload, EVERY time they pick one up. You would be asking drivers to break the law (it is illegal for any unauthorised person to break any kind of seal on a container). AT worst, he could be prosecuted for tampering with and HM Customs security device - at best, he could be help personlly responsible for anythng on the waybill hat was found to be missing from the shipment. He could lose his job, or his onctract
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So make them put cheap cameras on the ceilings of trailers.
 
cullennz said:
So make them put cheap cameras on the ceilings of trailers.
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Your cameras will need a recording device as well (a camara is not much use without a means to record what it sees). The cheapest option would probably be something like a trail camera - the best prices for one of those comes in at around $100.

There are about 20 million shipping containers world wide - so fitting every one of them out with a camera will cost about $2 billion plus installation costs.

Who do you expect to pay for this?

And that's just the shipping containers, then you have millions of trucks and, truck trailers to fit out.
 
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smartcooky said:
Your cameras will need a recording device as well (a camara is not much use without a means to record what it sees). The cheapest option would probably be something like a trail camera - the best prices for one of those comes in at around $100.

There are about 20 million shipping containers world wide - so fitting every one of them out with a camera will cost about $2 billion plus installation costs.

Who do you expect to pay for this?

And that's just the shipping containers, then you have millions of trucks and, truck trailers to fit out.
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I was talking about truck trailer units going to the UK, but feel free to move the old goal posts

Edit: And doesn't need recording

I just needs to show the driver what is in the trailer when he loads it
 
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Apparently, it is standard for UK delivery trucks (for example, delivery of frozen or refrigerated foods to supermarkets) to have a button on the inside so that anyone accidentally trapped inside can simply push it to get out. I understand that is also the case for walk-in refrigerators in restaurants.

Maybe containers could be replaced or have installed a similar device. After all, what goes into a container has to come out so shouldn't be too difficult to implement.

Or perhaps an alarm system, whereby anyone trapped inside can set it off, to show a flashing red light on the outside, together with a siren.
 
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