Cockle picker's tragic last phone call

One of the cockle pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay made a final mobile phone call to his wife in China as the waters rose around him, it emerged today.

Guo Binglong phoned his wife 5,000 miles away to tell her he thought he was going to die. He said: "I am in great danger. I am up to my chest in water. Maybe I am going to die. It's a tiny mistake by my boss. He should have called us back an hour ago.

"Tell the family to pray for me. It's too close - I am dying."

He had come to Britain apparently on a legal visa, in a desperate attempt to raise money to send back to his elderly parents, wife and two children, aged five and two.

He made the call home shortly before he drowned along with 18 other Chinese cockle pickers last Thursday after they were cut off by the fast-rising tides of Morecambe Bay, Lancashire.

At home in Zelang, a village on the South China Sea, his wife Yu Li Hong, mother Shi Ai Zhu and father Guo Ke Shu, were distraught today. His father said: "The most important thing is for the British to send his body back. They will do that, won't they?" He added: "We are a big family and we depended entirely on my son."

Before coming to Britain Mr Guo, 29, had worked with his father and two brothers collecting shellfish, making ?750 a year between them. Since coming to Britain six months ago Mr Guo had sent home about ?2,000.

Police have now matched eight of the dead to records held by the Immigration Service, but they cannot be sure they used their real names when they arrived in Britain.

Other victims believed to have come from villages around Zelang include Guo Changmao, whose family are understood to have disappeared in fear over unpaid debts to Snakehead gangs who smugg le people to Britain; and father-ofthree Guo Nianzhu, 41. The Guos were not related to one another.

The day of the tragedy was the first day at work for Cao Chaokun, 37, since arriving in Britain

shortly before the Chinese New Year. His youngest sister said: "He phoned home that morning. He told his family he was very happy that he could get work on the beach." Lin Lishui, 36, and Yu Hui, 35, are also named as victims. All had wives and children.

Since the deaths of the 17 men and two women - including a 15-year-old girl - seven people have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. David Eden, 60, a director of Liverpool Bay Fishing Company, and his son, also called David, were released on bail yesterday after being questioned. Mr Eden was believed to buy the cockle harvest from the gang leader who paid the workers as little as ?1 a night.

Police today are still questioning an English woman, three Chinese men and a Chinese woman.

Britain and China are now planning to station police officers in each other's countries as they battle to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.