A gangmaster was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Tuesday for the manslaughter of 21 Chinese shellfish pickers in northwestern England two years ago.
Lin Liang Ren, 29, was convicted last week following the disaster in fast-rising tides in Morecambe Bay on Feb. 5, 2004.
Justice Richard Henriques sentenced Lin to 12 years for manslaughter and six years for facilitating breaches of the immigration laws, to be served concurrently. He also sentenced Lin to two years for conspiring to pervert the course of justice, to be served consecutively.
Upon release, Henriques recommended that Lin, a Chinese national, be deported.
"You cynically and callously exploited your countrymen and women. You provided dreadful living conditions," Henriques told Lin.
"On the sands you showed no regard whatsoever for their safety, requiring workers to work dreadfully long hours, sometimes in appalling weather and in the dark," he added.
Lin's girlfriend, Zhao Xiao Qing, 21, and cousin Lin Mu Yong, 31, were convicted of facilitating breaches of the immigration law. Zhao was also found guilty of three charges of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Zhao was sentenced to two years, nine months in prison, and Henriques recommended that she be deported after serving the sentence.
Henriques said of Zhao that he had rarely if ever heard a more "contrived, deliberate and extended series of lies."
Lin Mu Yong was jailed for four years.
Police believe that 23 shellfish pickers -- all illegal immigrants from China -- died in the incident, but two bodies were never recovered.
Twenty of those whose bodies were recovered were from Fujian Province and the other was from Liaoning Province.
Meanwhile, the police detective who investigated the tragedy said a "virtual slave trade" of illegal immigrants is operating in Britain.
Lancashire Police's Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell said there was far too little awareness of just how badly illegal immigrants are being treated in Britain.
"I hope a wider message goes out, not just to do with cockling but anywhere where illegal immigrants are exploited," Gradwell said at Preston Crown Court. "People have got to be aware of how badly these people are treated. It's a virtual slave trade. We ask people to learn and take their part in preventing this happening."
He cited prostitution as an ever-widening trap for illegal immigrants.
Gradwell said he hoped Lin's jail term would wake people up to the living nightmare that the "land of promise" can turn into.
Many of Lin's charges had paid people-smuggling gangs in China a fortune to be smuggled into Britain.
"They were living in appalling conditions," he said. "They really couldn't speak the language, didn't know where they were, they were living 10 to a room in appalling houses with little heating."
Gradwell was delighted with Lin's sentence and the prospect of his deportation once it is served.
The court heard Lin could face execution if he was tried and convicted again in China.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS