In this Oct 23, 2019 file photo, forensic police officers attend the scene after a truck was found to contain a large number of dead bodies, in Grays, South England. A truck driver accused in the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants whose bodies were found inside a refrigerated container in England has pleaded guilty to manslaughter. (ALASTAIR GRANT / AP)

LONDON — British truck driver Maurice Robinson on Wednesday pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 39 Vietnamese migrants who were found dead in a refrigerated container last year.

Bodies of 39 Vietnamese nationals were discovered in a refrigerated trailer at an industrial estate in Essex on Oct 23 last year

Robinson, 25, from Craigavon in Northern Ireland, pleaded guilty to 39 counts of manslaughter at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales in London, known as the Old Bailey.

 At the same hearing, co-defendant Gheorghe Nica denied 39 counts of manslaughter. Both men appeared via video-link at the hearing.

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Bodies of 39 Vietnamese nationals were discovered in a refrigerated trailer at an industrial estate in Essex on Oct 23 last year. The trailer arrived in Britain on a ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium.

Essex police said ealier this year that the cause of death is a combination of hypoxia and hyperthermia. The victims included 10 teenagers, two of them 15-year-old boys.

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According to the BBC, the other defendants face a trial at the Old Bailey lasting up to eight weeks. It is scheduled to begin on Oct 5.