Memorial to Chinese lorry victims

Those who died were suffocated in a lorry carrying tomatoes

A permanent memorial was unveiled on Saturday to the 58 Chinese men and women who were found dead in the back of a truck at a British port.

It was the fifth anniversary of the tragedy at Dover docks in Kent.

The migrants suffocated when Dutch lorry driver Perry Wacker closed the air vent into the container during a six-hour ferry crossing from Belgium.

The granite memorial, with wording in English and Chinese, was unveiled on Dover seafront.

Attending the ceremony were Dover and Deal MP Gwyn Prosser and the Reverend Norman Setchell, a former port chaplain and founder of the Dover Asylum Seekers Support Group.

Police, port officials, customs officers and ambulance workers gathered to remember the victims.

Representatives of the Chinese government were invited - although Geoffrey Lear, chairman of the 58 Remembered Appeal Fund, said he did not expect any to attend.

Manslaughter sentence

Sixty people had paid a criminal gang to smuggle them into the UK, but only two survived the journey in June 2000.

The bodies of the 54 men and four women were discovered when Customs officers at Dover carried out a vehicle inspection.

Seven men were jailed by a court in the Netherlands for their roles, while Wacker was sentenced to 14 years for manslaughter at Maidstone Crown Court, Kent, in April 2001.