Migrant trucker has to pay back £21k

The killer trucker who discovered the dead bodies of 39 migrants in the back of his trailer was ordered to pay just £21,000 to the relatives of the victims.

Maurice Robinson, 27, was jailed for more than 13 years in January for his role as a lorry driver in the ring that earnt its leader up to £1 million a month.

Robinson had found the bodies of 39 Vietnamese nationals in the refrigerated trailer on 23 October 2019.

The run from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Purfleet in Essex was so well established that ringleader Ronan Hughes could charge his human cargo £14,000 a head, raking in a fortune he hid in offshore bank accounts around the world.

Crime boss Ronan Hughes, 41, packed as many migrants as he dared into each badly ventilated container and 28 men, eight women and three children suffocated on the final run as temperatures inside soared to 38.5C.

Some tried to batter their way out with a pole as others wrote final heart breaking text messages to relatives and partners as those around them sobbed in the darkness.

Jurors saw horrifying footage of steam gushing from the container which became a tomb as Robinson opened the doors after pulling up in Eastern Avenue, Grays.

Robinson, from Craigavon, County Armagh, had admitted manslaughter and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and acquiring criminal property.

He was sentenced to 13 years and four months imprisonment.

Bearded Robinson appeared at the Old Bailey today (thurs) via videolink from HMP Lowdham Grange in Nottinghamshire.

Jonathan Polnay, prosecuting, said Robinson’s benefit from crime was £50,000 but his available assets amounted to £21,262.

He said the figure included £4,693 in a Nationwide account, £4,008 in another bank account, £10,361 equity in a property in County Armagh, a 4×4 vehicle worth £2,000 and a watch worth £200.

The Recorder of London, Judge Mark Lucraft ordered Robinson pay £21,262 to the families of the victims in three months or serve another eight months jail in default.

Robinson had voiced his shameful hatred of ‘foreigners’ eight years before he found the bodies of 39 migrants in his trailer.

In a disturbing Facebook tirade, he ranted: ‘Stuffed in the back of a lorry then come and take everything that is supposed to be ours!’

He added in another post: ‘(Coming) here and act like they own the place’.

‘I actually hate foreigners, do us all a huge favour and go home.

‘It’s just the truth!’ he wrote in a social media comment. ‘They come here and then act like they own the place when they shouldn’t even be here’.

But he raked in tens of thousands of pounds ferrying non-EU citizens into the country.

He bought a luxury £160,000 property in the picturesque village of Markethill and paid for major refurbishments on his girlfriend’s beauty salon with the spoils of the trade.

Unlike the ‘sophisticated’ masterminds, Hughes and Gheorghe Nica, 43, left a huge financial ‘footprint’ from which police could trace his involvement with the operation.

He fell into the dirty side business through his haulage work for Hughes, with whom he communicated via Snapchat about people-smuggling runs while on the road.

‘Give them air quickly but don’t let them out,’ Hughes told him via the social media app on the day of the tragedy, to which Robinson replied with a thumbs-up emoji.

Robinson was arrested at the scene after calling 999 more than half an hour after he discovered the victims suffocated to death in the trailer in Eastern Avenue, Grays, Essex.

He admitted 39 counts of manslaughter at the Old Bailey in April last year after previously pleading guilty to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

The trucker also admitted transferring criminal property.

Fellor trucker Eamonn Harrison, 23, and Romanian fixer Gheorghe Nica, 43, were convicted of 39 counts of manslaughter while another driver, Christopher Kennedy, 24 and Valentin Calota, 38, were found guilty of assisting illegal immigration.

Hughes and Nica had admitted plotting to people smuggle and 39 counts of manslaughter.

Nica was jailed for 27 years; Hughes was jailed for 20 years. Nica was jailed for 27 years while Robinson was jailed for 13 years and four months.

Harrison was jailed for 18 years and Calota was jailed for four and a half years.