"Shocked" eyewitness called police three times in weeks leading up to migrant deaths

A "shocked" eyewitness called police three times about people jumping out of a lorry, two weeks before the deaths of 39 migrants, a court has heard.

Marie Andrews and her partner Stewart Cox allegedly spotted a drop outside their mobile home in Orsett, Essex in October last year.

Prosecutors claim it was one of two successful people-smuggling runs before 39 Vietnamese nationals suffocated in a trailer on October 23 last year.

Giving evidence at the Old Bailey on Monday, Ms Andrews told how she dialled 999 on October 11, after landscaper Mr Cox left for work and found a lorry and four cars in their lane.

She told the operator that "a load of immigrants just got out of a lorry into Mercs''.

Ms Andrews told jurors there were about 15 migrants.

She said: "I saw some legs come out. It was a shock, like anybody would be shocked to see this, particularly down a lane people would not know.

"I was on the phone, I'm standing there looking out as I'm speaking on the phone.

"I didn't take my eyes off the lorry while I was on the call.''

Ms Andrews went on to call the non-emergency number 101 twice, the court heard.

In the calls, she linked one of the Mercedes cars she had seen to an earlier incident on October 4.

On that occasion, she told police that the same guy who is obviously running this was having an argument and having some guy by the throat''.

But she added that the sighting on October 11 was the first time she had been aware of migrant issues.

Alleged key organiser Gheorghe Nica, 43, of Basildon, Essex, and lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 23, deny the manslaughters of 39 Vietnamese people, aged between 15 and 44.

Harrison, of Mayobridge, Co Down, Northern Ireland, Christopher Kennedy, 24, of Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, and Valentin Calota, 37, of Birmingham, deny being part of a people-smuggling conspiracy, which Nica has admitted.

Jurors have heard that four others have admitted a role in the people-smuggling ring.

"Maybe going to die in the container, can't breathe any more dear.''

The Vietnamese nationals were sealed inside the pitch-black unit, that reached 38.5C, for at least 12 hours, jurors were told.

Unable to raise the alarm, one of them - a 28-year-old woman - wrote a text message that was never sent, saying: "Maybe going to die in the container, can't breathe any more dear.''

The trial is expected to go on for up to six weeks.