Essex lorry deaths: driver called people smuggler saying 'I have a problem here'

A man accused over the deaths of 39 migrants found in a lorry in Essex has told jurors he fled the UK because he was 'scared'.

British Romanian, Gheorghe Nica, who's 43, denies any involvement in the deaths of the Vietnamese nationals in October last year.

He has admitted to some people-smuggling crimes but has said he was unaware anyone was in the trailer in Grays.

At the Old Bailey, he told jurors he had agreed for Maurice Robinson to park his lorry at a yard in Orsett, Essex, at 1am on October 23, at a meeting the evening before with his friend Marius Draghici.

Early the next day, Robinson picked up a trailer-load of migrants from Purfleet port and stopped in Eastern Avenue, having been instructed by haulier boss Ronan Hughes to give them air quickly''.

Nica described the moment the lorry driver told him in a telphone conversation: "I have a problem here - dead bodies in the trailer. "

Aftab Jafferjee QC, defending, asked: "What was your reaction to that?''

Nica replied: "I said 'Listen, what do you mean dead bodies?" He said 'Yeah, there are too many".

I said 'Ring the ambulance, ring the police, do not move at all'.

Mr Nica, from Basildon in Essex, and lorry driver Eamonn Harrison of County Down have both denied 39 counts of manslaughter.

Mr Harrison, and lorry driver Christopher Kennedy, 24, of Co Armagh, and Valentin Calota, 37, of Birmingham, have denied being part of a wider people-smuggling conspiracy, which Nica has admitted being involved in.

Robinson, 26, of Craigavon in Northern Ireland, and Hughes, 41, of Co Armagh in Northern Ireland, have admitted the manslaughter of the migrants.

The trial continues.