A Northern Irish man is on trial in London accused of manslaughter and for being part of a people-smuggling conspiracy.
Temperatures in the pitch-black refrigerated unit reached an “unbearable” 38.5C as the Vietnamese nationals were sealed inside 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.”
Jurors were told the cost of being smuggled across the English Channel in the back of a lorry was some £10,000 (€10,900) per person.
Lorry driver Eamonn Harrison and Gheorghe Nica are on trial at the Old Bailey accused of the manslaughter of the 39 migrants who were found dead after the lorry arrived in Purfleet, Essex, in October last year.
The pair are also accused of being part of a people-smuggling conspiracy with another lorry driver, Christopher Kennedy, and Valentin Calota.
Opening their Old Bailey trial, Bill Emlyn Jones told jurors that it was a “sad and unavoidable truth” that some people were prepared to go to great lengths to get to the UK “for a better life”.
Their desperation made them vulnerable to exploitation by those who did not care about immigration law and saw them as an opportunity to make money, the prosecutor said.
Harrison drove them to Zeebrugge in Belgium, and unhooked his trailer where it was loaded onto a cargo ship bound for Purfleet, in Essex, jurors heard.
Another lorry driver, Maurice Robinson, from Co Armagh, then collected the trailer from Purfleet when it arrived just after midnight on October 23rd.
Mr Emlyn Jones said that by then it had been some 12 hours at least since “any meaningful amount of fresh air had been let into the sealed container”.
Robinson knew he had to check on the occupants, having been sent a message from his boss to “give them air quickly, but don’t let them out”, the court heard.
The prosecutor said: “Robinson drove out of Purfleet port and almost immediately stopped and opened the doors at the back.
“What he found must haunt him still. For the 39 men and women inside, that lorry had become their tomb.”
The refrigerator had not been turned on during the journey, meaning the temperature inside the trailer rose to 38.5C, Mr Emlyn Jones said
Nica, 43, of Basildon, Essex, and Harrison, 23, of Mayobridge, Co Down, Northern Ireland, deny 39 counts of manslaughter.
Nica has admitted conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration between May 1 2018 and October 24 2019.
Harrison, Calota (37) and Kennedy (24) deny the conspiracy charge.
Nica was said by the prosecution to be a “key player” in the smuggling operation.
The trial before Mr Justice Sweeney is expected to go on for up to six weeks.
