Essex lorry deaths: Ronan Hughes appears in court charged with manslaughter
- Published
Ronan Hughes faces 39 manslaughter charges
A haulier has been remanded in custody over the deaths 39 Vietnamese migrants who were found dead in the back of a lorry in Essex.
Ronan Hughes, 40, was charged with 39 counts of manslaughter and one count of facilitating the illegal entry of people into the UK.
He was not asked to enter pleas during the hearing at Southend Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.
A plea hearing was set for 22 July at the Old Bailey.
Mr Hughes, who gave his address in court as Dalton Park, Armagh, was extradited from Ireland to the UK earlier this month and appeared in court via video link from a police station.
The bodies of the 39 Vietnamese citizens were found in a refrigerated lorry trailer in Grays in October after it had landed at Purfleet in Essex from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.
Among the men, women and children were 10 teenagers, two of them 15-year-old boys.