Five arrested over tragedy

Police investigating the deaths of 19 Chinese cockle pickers have arrested five people on suspicion of manslaughter.

The three men and two women, who have not been named, were arrested by Lancashire police last night and are today being questioned over their involvement in last Thursday's tragedy at Morecambe Bay.

Detectives believe the cockle pickers were the victims of Snakehead gangs who smuggle illegal immigrants into the UK then force them to work under slave conditions.

After a series of raids on properties in Merseyside officers seized computers, mobile phones and paperwork. They also saw the horrific conditions in which the cockle pickers - forced to work for as little as ?1 a day - must live. Up to seven share a single bedroom, sleeping on bare mattresses and with one bathroom between 40.

Steve Finnigan, deputy chief constable of Lancashire police said: "No one should underestimate the scale of this inquiry. It could take us to all parts of the globe." The gangmasters have instilled such fear of retribution in their workers that many of the 16 survivors of last Thursday's tragedy are too scared to give information.

One Chinese cockler, Wang Wen, 22, who lives with 12 others in a small house in Morecambe said she had been ordered to return to the sandbanks despite the deaths. She said: "I am really scared. I pray not to hear the sound of the boss's minibus outside. We are shocked at what happened and we are scared to go fishing but we must go back.

"We do not pay any rent here because we fish. If we do not fish we have nowhere to live."

The Chinese cocklers are believed to have each paid more than ?20,000 to leave China for the dream of a prosperous life in Britain.

The wife of one of the cockle pickers believed to have died told how her husband spent nine months travelling the 6,000 miles to Britain in the hope of earning enough money to pay off the family's debts.

The man, a father of two had managed to send home ?1,000 over the three months since he arrived in the UK - a fortune compared with the couple of hundred pounds a year he might hope to make on his farm.

The woman known only as Mrs Tian said she was overjoyed when her husband arrived in Britain three months ago. Since then he has phoned home to his village in Fujian province every week.

Mrs Tian said: "He said he had not worked for a couple of days. He said the next day they were being taken to a new place to look for shellfish."

The following day a contact in the UK rang to say her husband had gone cockle picking but had not made it back. Mr Tian's family as well as grieving now fear that Chinese police will arrest them for helping their relatives' illegal immigration.