A lorry driver for the gang responsible for the deaths of 39 Vietnamese men, women and children in a failed people smuggling operation has been released from prison after serving just three and a half years.
Christopher Kennedy was at the heart of the complex and lucrative human smuggling operation which for years illegally brought Vietnamese people into the UK from the Continent.
Kennedy, 29, picked up containers with people inside, but not the one in which 39 Vietnamese, aged between 15 and 44, suffocated in at Purfleet, Essex in October 2019.
However, the trial of the ring leaders of the people-smuggling gang heard that Kennedy, from Keady in County Armagh, was a key member and ‘in the loop’ after the tragedy unfolded.
The Old Bailey was told Kennedy received several phone calls from haulier boss Ronan Hughes soon after the bodies were discovered in one of his trailer’s by driver Maurice Robinson.
