A lorry driver was “in the loop” within minutes of the discovery of 39 dead migrants in the back of a trailer in Essex, a court has heard.
Christopher Kennedy, 24, is accused of being a member of a team behind the people-smuggling operation which went disastrously wrong on October 23 last year.
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones asked Mr Kennedy about a flurry of calls on burner phones after lorry driver Maurice Robinson opened the doors to haulier boss Ronan Hughes’s trailer and saw 39 Vietnamese people were dead inside.
The victims had all suffocated as the sealed container they were in was shipped from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Purfleet in Essex.
Just at the moment Mr Robinson made the dreadful discovery, Mr Hughes was on the phone to Mr Kennedy, jurors heard.
Then while Mr Robinson was relaying the news to Mr Hughes at 1.19am, Mr Kennedy was trying to get hold of him too, the court was told.
Exactly 46 seconds after that call ended, Mr Hughes rang Mr Kennedy, who was on the continent with a load of wine.
Mr Emlyn Jones said: “Bearing in mind the situation Hughes found himself in at that particular time, can you help us why it was that he felt it necessary to speak to you?”
Kennedy said: “He was phoning me back.”
The prosecutor asked: “So it’s business as usual for him, is it?
“As far as you are concerned nothing in this phone call gave you any impression something unusual, terrible, disastrous had happened?”
The defendant replied: “He was with me, yes.”
Mr Emlyn Jones went on: “Seven minutes or so have passed and Hughes finds the time to give you another ring. What’s this about?”
Mr Kennedy said Mr Hughes told him there was a “problem” with his booking to travel by boat from Zeebrugge with the wine and he should go by train instead.
The prosecutor said: “I suggest to you, Mr Kennedy, you are making this up and Mr Hughes, dealing with 39 dead unlawful migrants, is not at the time calmly carrying on with you about your load of wine and whether you are on the boat or on the train.
“You have had to dream up an excuse for this call.”
The defendant insisted he was telling the truth.
The court heard that was the last time either Mr Kennedy or Mr Hughes used their burner phones.
Mr Emlyn Jones suggested: “Is it that Hughes was telling you: ‘There’s been a crisis for God’s sake, get rid of your burner phone’?”
As news of the tragedy began to spread, Mr Kennedy texted a friend that it was Ronan Hughes’s trailer.
He also told him that there “must have been too many and run out of air”.
Mr Emlyn Jones said he was “absolutely spot on” in his assessment of what went wrong.
He suggested that demonstrated a clear understanding of the dangers because he was a people smuggler himself.
Mr Kennedy denied it.
Earlier, the defendant told jurors he thought he was picking up cigarettes and not migrants from Purfleet on October 11th and 18th last year.
The first he knew of people smuggling was when Mr Hughes asked him to help tidy up a consignment of macaroons which had been trampled in transit during the October 18th run, he said.
When he confronted Mr Hughes, he just “shrugged it off”, the defendant said.
But Mr Emlyn Jones said: “You are a member of the team, aren’t you?
“That’s why you signed up for that following the people smuggling. It just goes with the territory.”
The defendant denied it.
The prosecutor added: “It would appear he was not in the least bothered about you knowing the truth.”
Mr Kennedy of Co Armagh, Eamonn Harrison, 23, of County Down and Valentin Calota, 37, of Birmingham, have denied plotting to people smuggle.
Mr Harrison and alleged organiser Gheorghe Nica, 43, of Basildon, Essex, have denied 39 counts of manslaughter.
Jurors have heard that Mr Robinson, 26, of Craigavon in Northern Ireland and Mr Hughes, 41, Co Armagh, have admitted the manslaughters.
