A van driver accused of smuggling migrants in a hidden compartment has denied knowing they were in the vehicle and was “shocked” and “completely numb” at the discovery, a court has heard. Seven people were rescued from the space “the width of a human chest” as they travelled on board a ferry to the Newhaven after the crew heard them banging and screaming for help . Anas Al Mustafa, 43, is on trial accused of smuggling them into the UK inside a specially adapted van between Dieppe, in France, and the port in Newhaven, on February 16.
Jurors had heard how the crew on the Seven Sisters ship heard pleas from inside a van on deck and used an axe to break down the fake partition inside hiding the people to get them out. Al Mustafa told Lewes Crown Court on Thursday it was the “most difficult day of his life”. Speaking through an Arabic interpreter, the father-of-two said: “I was in a situation where the shock was too massive I was almost out of consciousness.
“I remember only certain scenes of what was going on, I saw a person throwing up, I saw them when they were getting the people inside to outside, it was a shock to me. “I didn’t know what to do, I can’t even feel my limbs.” The court previously had heard how Al Mustafa, who is originally from Syria but moved to the UK in 2011, was introduced to a man called Badr last time he was in Syria in January who said he needed him to do a job for him driving a van.
The prosecution previously said in a police .