‘I can’t give them air – they’re all dead’

A people smuggler who ferried migrants into the UK five days before 39 Vietnamese nationals died should be given a lighter sentence because he was ‘misled,’ the Old Bailey heard. Drivers Eamonn Harrison, 23, and Maurice Robinson, 26, together with Romanian fixer Gheorghe Nica, 43, were paid by kingpin Ronan Hughes, 40, to ferry non-EU citizens into the UK. The multi-million pound run from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Purfleet in Essex was so well established that Hughes could charge his…