A juror has been discharged at Birmingham Crown Court after falling asleep and starting to snore during the opening of a people-smuggling trial.
The male panel member was replaced with an alternate juror on Tuesday, less than an hour into the Crown’s opening speech against Mai Van Nguyen, who denies involvement in a plot to smuggle Vietnamese immigrants into the UK.
Judge Dean Kershaw asked the 12 jurors selected for the case and two reserve jurors to leave the courtroom briefly after interrupting prosecutor Kelly Brocklehurst’s speech to tell a juror on the back row of the jury bench: “You’re asleep, you’re snoring.”
After the juror was replaced following a delay and the jury returned to court, Mr Brocklehurst continued his speech by joking: “I clearly need to up my game – I assure you things will get more interesting.”
Nguyen, formerly of Jeremiah Road, Wolverhampton, is accused of conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration between August 19 and September 6 2020.
Prosecutors allege the 34-year-old received immigrants who had been moved by others from the south coast of England to the Midlands, finding them housing and illegal forms of labour.
As well as “receiving them and spiriting them away into the community”, Mr Brocklehurst alleged, Nguyen “took whatever measures were needed to house them”.
Telling jurors that two other men had been convicted of their part in the conspiracy last December, the Crown’s barrister added: “Together with others, these conspirators engaged in this enterprise for commercial gain.
“There was nothing altruistic about this.”
The trial at Birmingham Crown Court continues.
