Vietnamese woman feared to be among 39 dead bodies

The family of Pham Tra My, 26, told the BBC they had paid £30,000 for her to be smuggled to Britain, which has now been repaid.

They said they have not been able to contact her since she sent text messages on Tuesday night - around two hours before the refrigerated trailer arrived in the port of Purfleet - saying she was suffocating.

"I am really, really sorry, Mum and Dad, my trip to a foreign land has failed," she wrote.

"I am dying, I can't breathe. I love you very much Mum and Dad. I am sorry, Mother."

Her brother told the broadcaster: "My sister went missing on October 23 on the way from Vietnam to the UK and we couldn't contact her. We are concerned she may be in that trailer.

"We are asking the British police to help investigate so that my sister can be returned to the family."

An international investigation is under way after eight women and 31 men were discovered in a refrigerated trailer in Grays in the early hours of Wednesday.

The driver of the truck, named locally as 25-year-old Mo Robinson, from Northern Ireland, remains in custody after he was held on suspicion of murder.

A couple named locally as Thomas Maher and his wife Joanna, both 38, were arrested on suspicion of 39 counts of manslaughter and people trafficking on Friday.

The previous day, they claimed to have sold the Bulgarian-registered Scania lorry cab, that picked up the trailer in Purfleet, to a company in Ireland.

Mrs Maher, who is reportedly the last known owner of the vehicle, told MailOnline: "We did own it but sold it 13 months ago."

Police officers could be seen at the couple's home address in Warrington, with a police van and two squad cars parked outside.

Officers carried evidence bags inside the four-bedroom property, which had two grey Range Rovers with personalised number plates and a white Chevrolet sports car parked on the drive.

The house was bought by the couple, originally from southern Ireland, for £255,000 in March 2017, according to Land Registry records, before the couple undertook extensive renovations on the property, according to neighbours.

Locals said Mr Maher is the owner of a haulage firm and his wife works as a hairdresser.

They said they have three teenage children, two boys aged 18 and 11 and a 15-year-old girl, and enjoy numerous foreign holidays, including trips to Mexico and long cruises.

Post-mortem examinations were due to begin on Friday as the bodies were moved by private ambulance with a police escort from the port of Tilbury to Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.

Police have not confirmed whether the driver raised the alarm after finding the bodies, while his supporters have set up petitions online calling for his release.

People living close to Purfleet said illegal migrants were a familiar sight.

"It's a magnet for illegals," said Janet Lilley, 61. "People would come strolling out of the docks, get in the vans and that's it, they drive off."

Lee Tubby, 45, who lives opposite the port, said he has seen people "climbing out the top and out the back" of lorries and cutting the plastic roof covering to climb through.

"We've had people just come out of the port knocking on the door asking for shoes, asking for water," he said.

It is not yet known when the victims entered the sealed refrigerated trailer, where temperatures can be as low as -25C, or the exact route it travelled.

Mike Gradwell, a former Lancashire Police detective superintendent who worked on the probe into the Morecambe Bay cockling tragedy in which 23 Chinese illegal immigrants drowned, told BBC Breakfast that those inside could have been trafficked by a Snakehead gang.

"These are criminal travel agents really - you go to a Snakehead to say you want to be trafficked to an economic opportunity and usually you'll borrow quite a significant amount of money," he said.

Belgian officials said the trailer arrived at Zeebrugge at 2.49pm on Tuesday and left the port the same day en route to Purfleet.

Joachim Coens, chief executive of Zeebrugge port, said it was unlikely people were loaded into the container at the Belgian site, while mayor Dirk De Fauw, who is also the chairman of the port, said it was "virtually impossible" the victims went into the trailer at the Belgian border.

The trailer arrived at Purfleet at around 12.30am on Wednesday, and the front section to which it was attached, known as the tractor, came from Northern Ireland via Holyhead in North Wales on Sunday.

The lorry and trailer left the port at Purfleet shortly after 1.05am, and officers were called to the Waterglade Industrial Park on Eastern Avenue in Grays at 1.40am.

Irish company Global Trailer Rentals Ltd (GTR) confirmed it owned the refrigerated part of the lorry and a spokesman said the company was "shellshocked" and "gutted" by the news.

The firm said the trailer had been leased on October 15 from its rentals yard in Co Monaghan, in the Republic of Ireland, at a rate of 275 euro - £237 - a week.

It said it provided police with information about the person and company that leased the trailer, as well as offering to make tracking data available.

Three addresses have been searched in Northern Ireland as part of the probe, while warrants were also carried out in Cheshire.

China has called for joint efforts to counter human smuggling, while vigils have been held in London and Belfast to pay tribute to the victims.