Essex lorry deaths: People smuggler must compensate families

Gheorghe Nica was caught on CCTV in a shop purchasing a mobile phone top-up during the smuggling plot

A people smuggler involved in the death of 39 migrants has been ordered to compensate their families more than £65,000.

Gheorghe Nica was previously jailed for 27 years after being convicted of 39 counts of manslaughter and human trafficking.

He was part of a smuggling ring that resulted in the deaths in Grays, Essex, in October 2019.

An Old Bailey judge ordered Nica, 46, to pay £65,157.65 to the families.

The defendant was responsible for giving lorry driver Maurice Robinson his instructions in the hours before the tragic discovery was made in the early hours of 23 October 2019.

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During his sentencing in January 2021, Mr Justice Sweeney said Nica "recruited and paid the drivers whose job it was to collect the migrants when they reached the drop-off site in this country and to drive them to the safe house(s) where they were to be held until payment".

Nica, from Basildon, Essex, is one of four men already convicted of manslaughter - and one of 11 in total now jailed in connection with the deaths.

At this stage, those convicted have been ordered to pay a total of £283,802.58 as compensation to the families of the 39 victims, who suffocated to death.

Det Ch Insp Louise Metcalfe said Essex Police officers "never lost sight" of the impact of the deaths.

"Our priority has always been to ensure that those directly involved in the tragic journey overnight between 22 and 23 October are caught, prosecuted and ultimately punished," she said.

A total of 39 Vietnamese migrants were discovered dead inside the back of a lorry

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