A member of the public rang police about people jumping out of lorries, less than two weeks before the deaths of 39 asylum seekers near the Dartford Crossing, a court has heard.

Marie Andrews and her partner Stewart Cox called the cops after allegedly spotting a migrant drop outside their mobile home in Orsett, Essex, on October 11 last year.

Footage shown to the jury shows cars leaving the site

It happened a fortnight before 39 Vietnamese people were found suffocated to death in a pitch-black refrigerated unit while stationed at Grays, on October 23.

Prosecutors claim the eye witness sighting is one of two successful people-smuggling runs before the tragic incident.

Giving evidence at the Old Bailey today Ms Andrews told the court how she dialled 999 on October 11, after landscaper Mr Cox left for work and found a lorry and four cars in their lane.

She told the operator that “a load of immigrants just got out of a lorry into Mercs”.

Jurors were told by Ms Andrews there was estimated to be around 15 of them.

She said: “I saw some legs come out. It was a shock, like anybody would be shocked to see this, particularly down a lane people would not know.

“I was on the phone, I’m standing there looking out as I’m speaking on the phone.

“I didn’t take my eyes off the lorry while I was on the call.”

Ms Andrews went on to call the non-emergency number 101 twice, the court heard.

In the calls, she linked one of the Mercedes cars she had seen to an earlier incident on October 4.

On that occasion, she told police that “the same guy who is obviously running this was having an argument and having some guy by the throat”.

The witness also told jurors that two weeks later on October 18 she saw a red lorry in the lane, but no one in the back of the lorry.

Under cross-examination, Ms Andrews alleged there was “dodgy stuff” going on in the area but added that the sighting on October 11 was the first time she had been aware of any issues.

Alleged key organiser Gheorghe Nica, 43, of Basildon, Essex, and lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 23, deny the manslaughters of 39 Vietnamese people, aged between 15 and 44.

In her statement read to court, Ms Andrews described ringing 101 again after seeing the news of the 39 deaths on social media.

Footage shows Kennedy's lorry drives out after drop off

Ms Andrews, who became a witness in the trial as a result of that call, said: “I immediately recognised this cab and trailer on the news as certainly being the same one that I had seen on both October 11 and October 18 2019.”

However, police understand this was a different lorry in use, believed to be linked to the same group.

Harrison, of Mayobridge, Co Down, Northern Ireland, Christopher Kennedy, 24, of Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, and Valentin Calota, 37, of Birmingham, deny being part of a people-smuggling conspiracy, which Nica has admitted.

Jurors have heard that four others have admitted a role in the people-smuggling ring.

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