Migrants heard ‘banging and screaming’ for help in refrigerated van, court hears

A group of migrants were heard banging and screaming for help concealed in a refrigerated van as they were being starved of oxygen on board a ferry, a court has heard.

Anas Al Mustafa, 43, is on trial accused of smuggling the seven people into the UK in a specially adapted van via a ferry between Dieppe , in France , and Newhaven , in East Sussex, UK, on February 16.

Jurors at Lewes Crown Court heard how the crew on the Seven Sisters ship heard pleas from inside a van on deck and used an axe to break down the fake partition inside hiding the people to get them out.

The heat created by seven people in such a small space and the lack of sufficient air/oxygen had created a highly dangerous situation. It was no doubt this mortal emergency that forced the migrants to call for help in desperation

Opening the case, prosecutor Nick Corsellis KC said the hidden compartment was two metres wide, 194cm tall and 37cm in narrow width which forced the migrants to stand and they could not move to any meaningful degree.

They also were not provided water, the prosecutor said.

Mr Corsellis said: “The heat created by seven people in such a small space and the lack of sufficient air/oxygen had created a highly dangerous situation.

“It was no doubt this mortal emergency that forced the migrants to call for help in desperation.”

The group were rescued at around 9.20am, by that point two of the migrants had lost consciousness, the prosecutor added.

Meanwhile, efforts had been made to contact the driver on the ship, Al Mustafa, but the crew had no response.

Passengers on board the ship however responded to a call for assisting the crew, and Australian nurse Sari Gehle helped provide oxygen and medical supervision in the “confusing situation” where the only migrant able to speak spoke Vietnamese, while she spoke English and the crew spoke French.

Mr Corsellis also said Ms Gehle noticed one person “stood out” in the situation, who she described as an Asian man with a puffer jacket who was “sitting on the ground seemingly scrolling through his mobile telephone and was remarkably calm in her view.”

Mr Corsellis said that the man was the defendant.

The migrants were taken to hospital and treated, he added.

Al Mustafa, of Swansea and who moved to the UK in 2011 from Syria, has denied assisting unlawful immigration to the UK and the opening continues.