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Cockle pickers rescued after gangs clash at disaster spot

KATE FOSTER
HOME AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT


MORE than 100 cockle pickers came close to drowning yesterday after rival gangs of Scottish and Chinese workers clashed more than four miles from shore.

Police have launched a criminal investigation after two tractors carrying a total of 136 cocklers, including 60 Scots, collided in an open expanse of the sands of Morecambe Bay shortly before the tide was set to turn.

The gangs were stranded on the treacherous sands as both tractors broke down as a result of the smash.

A major operation was launched as hovercraft, helicopters and lifeboats were all dispatched to bring the cocklers to safety at Morecambe Bay in Lancashire close to the same spot where 21 Chinese pickers lost their lives earlier this year.

Sources close to the investigation said officers were investigating the possibility that the two gangs were turf rivals and the crash was deliberate.

Two large tractor units pulling trailers are understood to have collided on flat, open sands, four miles off the coast with no other vehicles in the immediate area.

Both tractors were so badly damaged they could not be driven, although none of the workers was seriously hurt in the incident.

Mark Clark, spokesman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, yesterday said 60 Scots were on one trailer and the other was carrying 76 Chinese.

He said: "They seem to have been purely commercial organisations. We just do not know why this happened but we know there is intense rivalry between gangs. Both vehicles were very badly damaged in the collision. Neither of them were working or moveable. They were both stuck. How they managed to get into a collision is anyone's guess.

"It's such a vast area. Whether there was any rivalry between these two particular groups I don't know. Our concern was the fact that they were four miles off the coast."

He added: "All the cocklers are now accounted for and everybody is safe and well, but you wonder if this is the dry run for something more sinister later this year.

"This is the 16th rescue of commercial cocklers this year and with every one of them you wonder when the next fatality will occur.

"If something like this happened at high tide in failing light, on a winter's day we could have a rerun of what happened in February, with fatalities."

The cocklers were stranded after two tractor units pulling the trailers on which they were being carried, collided at around 10am next to the Lancaster channel; one of four deep gullies which bisect the area.

After a rescue operation of more than three hours, the last of the cocklers was brought back to shore at just after 1pm, only 30 minutes before the tide was due to turn.

The rescue was hampered because the group splintered into various smaller groups who all began making their own way back.

Cumbria Police confirmed it would be investigating the incident.

Spokesman Mike Head said: "We are looking to see whether any offences have been committed and we're going to be talking to people to find this out.

"One of the things we will be looking at is how the collision happened.

"We are aware of the potential of the problem here. In the end, it all ended happily, but on a previous occasion it didn't, so we have been working fairly closely with the companies and individuals that come here and we've been managing it as best we can for Cumbria, making sure people are safe and act legally.

"We are looking at what possible offences might have been committed but we won't know until that's been investigated.

A spokeswoman for the Health and Safety Executive said Scottish migrant workers have been cockling on Morecambe Bay for some time.

She added: "It is not unknown to have labourers from Scotland doing this kind of work. Harvesting from the sea has been happening for decades using migrant labour and until the incident with the Chinese cockle pickers in February there had not been any reported deaths.

"Without the facts of what happened here we cannot make a statement. We don't know exactly what happened. We know they got stranded and that they were on huge tractors, about 12ft tall, and something happened and the alarm was raised.

"This happened at 10am and the tide was due to turn at 1.30pm with high tide at 4.30pm. We have got to find out why these people got stranded."

She added: "The major health and safety issue with the tragedy involving the Chinese cockle pickers earlier this year is that we think they might not have been able to read the signs around Morecambe Bay so we have now produced leaflets in Chinese."

A Home Office spokesman said: "The Home Office is leading a multi-agency approach aimed at tackling the problem of unscrupulous gang masters exploiting people like illegal immigrants. A Gangmasters (Licensing) Bill is being looked at which will help curb this problem and we have 'Reflex', also a multi-agency operation chaired by the National Crime Squad, which seeks to tackle people-smuggling at its source.

"We are also legislating at the moment to make it a criminal offence to traffic people into the UK for the sole purpose of exploitation. Unfortunately, there has been a history in the north-western region of unscrupulous individuals using illegal immigrants for the purpose of cheap labour."

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