IMAGINE the unbelievable horror of finding 39 people dead in the back of a lorry. They were people in search of a better life. The initial police approach to the lorry must have brought an unimaginable trauma.

That marked the start of a painstaking investigation leading to justice for those 39 migrants.

Since the discovery of the mass grave of 39 migrants inside the lorry container in the Waterglade Industrial Estate, Grays, on October 23, 2019, the force has embarked upon its biggest investigation to date.

More than 1,300 staff took part in the investigation.

Speaking to the Echo, Det Chief Insp Daniel Stoten and Kelly Matthews of the Crown Prosecution Servicehave lifted the lid on the work that went into the case.

Echo:

Det Chief Insp Daniel Stoten

Mr Stoten said: “It’s been a total of 1,300 people worked on the investigation of all strands, initial response with uniformed colleagues, and all those into the investigation. When we settled into the investigation we had about 120 investigators working on the initial and that slowly scaled down.

“The first three months I hardly ever went home. I went home, slept and came back. For everyone it was all consuming, huge amount of information coming our way.

“Within two weeks, we reached the point where we exceeded the total amount of information or documents that we would received for the whole of those [normal] investigations.

“The victims didn’t die in Essex they died in our waters. They could have gone anywhere.

“In fact, we can see that they came into Purfleet, if they turned left it would have been the Met.”

Kelly Matthews said it became the largest manslaughter case the CPS has ever prosecuted.

Echo:

Kelly Matthews of the CPS

She said: “We’ve worked closely with Essex Police and the National Crime Agency to build this complex case to bring it to court and enable justice to be done.

“It’s been a matter of pulling together different elements and weaving them into our evidential case.

“Taking thousands of pages of material and hundreds of witness statements and picking out the elements which we say proves our case and enables the jury to hear the full picture.

“Even in non-pandemic times, to get a case of this scale and nature in court within a year of the first individual being arrested is an outstanding achievement, in the current climate it’s fantastic work of the CPS, Essex Police and the court service working together.

She added: “The facts around this terrible incident send a clear message to anyone involved in people smuggling to warn them against doing this.”

Echo:

The lorry where the bodies were found

Romanian ringleader Gheorghe Nica, 43, from Langdon Hills, and lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 24, from County Down, were found guilty on Monday of 39 counts of manslaughter.

They were also convicted of their part in the people-smuggling operation with lorry driver Christopher Kennedy, 24, from County Armagh, and Valentin Calota, 38, from Birmingham. The verdicts bring the total number of people convicted in Britain to eight, including haulier boss Ronan Hughes, 41, of Armagh, and 26-year-old lorry driver Maurice Robinson, of Craigavon, who admitted manslaughter. They will be sentenced at a later date.