Survivors relive last desperate hours as 58 illegal immigrants suffocated around them

The two survivors of the Dover lorry tragedy in which 58 Chinese illegal immigrants died spoke yesterday for the first time of the panic that gripped the 60 people packed into the airtight container as they began to suffocate.

Speaking on the fourth day of the trial of Perry Wacker, a Dutch lorry driver charged with 58 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to smuggle illegal immigrants, Ke Su Di and Ke Shi Guang, the only survivors of the doomed human cargo, described the scenes in the lorry.

Wacker, 32, and a translator, Ying Guo, 29, of South Woodford, London, who is charged with conspiracy to facilitate the entry of illegal immigrants, deny the charges.

The survivors, who are under police protection, told how a vent, the only source of oxygen, was closed before the lorry boarded a Zeebrugge to Dover ferry last year.

Speaking behind a screen and through an interpreter, Ke Shi Guang, 22, broke down as he described how they pounded the side of the lorry and screamed for help as they gasped for breath.

"Did there come a time when those in the container started to become distressed?" he was asked by Victor Temple QC for the Crown.

"Yes."

"Others were having great difficulty breathing?"

"Yes."

"Did all of you bang on the side of the container, shout and ask for help?"

"Yes," he said, sobbing.

Ke Su Di, 20, told the court that within two or three hours of the vent being closed some people began to pass out in the darkness.

"People began to panic because the window was shut and there was no air," he said.

He had been one of the last people loaded on to the lorry in the Netherlands and so was close to the load of tomatoes used to conceal their presence at the back of the container.

"I wanted to breathe air so I got close to the tomatoes but I do not think they were any use."

He said other people in the container also tried getting close to the tomatoes, but when this did not work everyone started screaming and shouting for help.

"Some people removed tomatoes and wanted to kick open the doors.

"There was also a lot of shouting and screaming but nobody came to help."

He passed out and the next thing he recalled was being dragged from the lorry at Dover by customs officials around four hours later.

Both survivors had paid up to 230,000RMB (£20,000) to a Snakehead gang to be transported to Britain. On June 18 they began the final leg of their journey.

The group of 60 gathered at a warehouse in Rotterdam after spending around three days in two safe houses in the city. They were driven in two small vans, one resembling an ambulance, which had the windows blacked out with paper.

The group were loaded aboard the lorry and four containers of water were passed up to them. The tomatoes were then loaded and the doors sealed.

The group had been told that at some point on the journey the air vent would be closed to prevent them being heard by customs or police, the jury at Maidstone crown court was told.

"We were told if this window is open you can speak in very low voices, but if it is closed then you do not speak."

Both survivors were carrying a piece of paper bearing Ms Ying's name and her telephone number. A man in the warehouse told the group that she was the person to contact when they got to the UK.

"He said everyone should write down this telephone number and we all took down the number. He said if you were arrested over there [the UK] you call this number. This person will come to bail you," Ke Shi Guang said.

Ke Su Di told the court that his journey to Britain had begun 11 days previously on June 7 when he travelled to Beijing from his home province of Fujian and boarded a plane bound for Moscow.

His parents paid a local Snakehead gang a downpayment of 10,000RMB, the equivalent of 10 months' pay. The remaining payment of 220,000RMB was payable on his arrival in the UK. If it was not made, the court heard, he would be locked up by the Snakeheads and retribution would follow.

"If the money was not paid then I'm in the hands of the Snakeheads, I'm the one in real danger," he said.

He had been told to wear a grey t-shirt and black trousers so the Snakeheads would recognise him, and was given a code number to prevent the wrong Snakehead gang picking him up. He met Ke Shi Guang when he picked up his passport and they started the journey together.

Travelling with a group of 15 others and a Snakehead minder they flew on to Yugoslavia from Moscow and then passed into Hungary by road and on foot. The group then moved through Austria to France where they caught a train to Rotterdam. Ke Su Di said he travelled for the first part of the journey on his own passport and therefore did not think he was acting illegally. When he arrived in Hungary this passport was taken from him and replaced with a forged Korean passport which was taken away when he got to the Netherlands.

Both men attempted to describe the men who loaded the lorry at the Rotterdam warehouse but struggled because they were not familiar with seeing foreigners.

The court heard that Ke Su Di's application for political asylum had been refused, but when he agreed to give evidence he was granted exceptional leave to remain for the next four years by the home secretary, Jack Straw.