Manslaughter trial: Lorry driver denies it would have been ‘blindingly obvious’ that migrants were piling into the back of his van

Valentin Calota, 38, from Birmingham, is accused of being part of a ring linked to the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants on October 23 last year.

Giving evidence at the Old Bailey, the defendant claimed fellow Romanian Gheorghe Nica, who he knew as a large scale smuggler of illicit goods, paid him £700 to transport what he thought was a load of cigarettes from Essex to London on October 18 last year.

Jurors have heard Nica has since accepted migrants were in fact transported in the van that Calota was driving that day.

But Calota told jurors he did not see or hear them as he made the 30km journey wearing earphones, smoking with the window down and the radio up.

Cross-examining, Jonathan Polnay said: “You knew what you were getting involved in was serious crime?”

The defendant agreed.

Asked if he would have agreed to transport migrants rather than cigarettes, Calota said: “If he (Nica) had told me something like this I would have said straight no because it’s a bad thing to traffic human beings.

“It’s a bad thing to load people in a van and keep them there as if they are animals. I’m sorry but I don’t agree with this.

“Smuggling cigarettes and alcohol is also a bad thing and I’m sorry – I accept this part of it.”

The prosecutor said: “I’m going to suggest it must have been absolutely blindingly obvious as you sat in that van there was a lot of people – a dozen – getting in the back of it.”

Calota said: “I did not see. I felt the van moving, I heard voices and noises. I saw people in cars. I heard doors being closed.”

Mr Polnay suggested: “You must have felt the distinctive feel, the suspension moving, the van moving, as at least a dozen people are piling into the back of it.”

The defendant said: “Yes I did.”

Mr Polnay said: “People were only getting on. It was not as if people were getting in and out, as if loading.”

The defendant said he assumed that they were simply loading cigarettes.

The lawyer said: “Even on your own story about being deceived by Mr Nica, by this time you must have known you were transporting illegal immigrants and by your conduct you were happy to do that.”

Lorry driver Calota replied: “I never knew that I had migrants. I sometimes sit and think how easily I was duped.”

Nica, 43, of Basildon, Essex, and Eamonn Harrison, 23, of County Down, have denied 39 counts of manslaughter.

Calota, Harrison and Christopher Kennedy, 24, of County Armagh, have denied being involved in a people smuggling plot, which Nica has admitted.