Operation Melrose Team wins Federation’s Special Recognition Award

The team of Essex Police Officers who tirelessly looked after the welfare of their colleagues as they dealt with the horrific Grays lorry migrant deaths has won the first ever Essex Police Federation Special Recognition Award.

Essex Police officers discovered 39 Vietnamese migrants in the back of a refrigerated lorry on 23rd October, 2019 in Grays. The 31 men and eight women, including a 15-year-old child, all died due to suffocation and overheating.

The force’s Welfare and TRiM team identified all the officers who were working on the traumatic Operation Melrose case and who might have been involved with the deceased.

They ensured the welfare of their colleagues was maintained as best it could be throughout the tragic incident and subsequent investigations.

Together the team drew up a list of all those involved to ensure any mental trauma they may have suffered was properly addressed and triaged and that those working on the case were able to take proper mental health breaks away from the onerous task of discovering what had happened.

The team ended up running 60 one-on-one sessions with colleagues.

Team member Sgt Rob Webber says they used TRiM techniques to ensure no officers slipped through the welfare net.

“We decided to use a lot of the TRiM techniques in terms of filtering, so we went through the Storm incident, to begin with, and started to call names off, those who had been involved in it in the first 24 hours,” he said.

“From there we started to formulate a list, a spreadsheet of people involved in the incident, so we had a long list of everyone and started to try and work out what roles they played in the incident, we then went through a filtering process to try and prioritise who was at more risk of exposure to trauma through over-exposure or length of time, or just the proximity they had to the deceased.”

Once that was done, it was ensuring officers could receive the TRiM support they needed.

“Once we had a priority list, we assigned ourselves as a team to offer the support, and we had a good take-up. We ended up conducting over 60 one-on-one sessions, utilising other TRiM trained people too,” Rob said.

Rob says the officers who received support and even those who didn’t were grateful that something was on offer to help them through what was a horrific and tragic incident.

“We had a couple of days where we went to Grays police station, where the initial attending officers were, and we let them all know where we were. We put a poster up to say we were there and let people come and see us,” he said.

“We managed to get a welfare fund so on a couple of occasions we visited officers who were at the mortuary and delivered sweets, drinks, and some fruit to them – we did the same thing for the family liaison officers, too.

“Sometimes it’s a small gesture just to say, ‘you guys have been working hell for leather on this. Take a break.

“’Have some fruit, have a bottle of water, have some sweets. Take a break from that and look after yourself.’

“A lot of them are working such long hours, long days, not having rests.

“Just the fact that we had a team together that was put together solely to look after officers’ welfare, I think that resonated well throughout the force,” Rob added.

Essex Police Federation Chair Laura Heggie said the dedication shown by the team throughout the tragic incident was exemplary.

“They assisted so many officers who were on the frontline and those who were affected deeply by what had happened,” she said.

“They played an absolutely crucial role in allowing people to stop, to take a break and to just talk about what they were going through.

“I’m certain they helped prevent many officers from suffering much worse trauma than they might have done.”

Laura added that the thoughts of all at the Federation – and within Essex Police – remain with the family, friends and colleagues of all those who lost their lives in the incident.

The team attended the Essex Police Federation Bravery Awards ceremony on September 16. The Awards were sponsored by Uniform Mortgages.

Eamonn Harrison, a lorry driver from Northern Ireland, and Gheorghe Nica, the coordinator of the smuggling operation, from Romania, were found guilty of manslaughter. Another two men – haulage boss Ronan Hughes, County Monaghan, Ireland, and 26-year-old lorry driver Maurice Robinson – had previously admitted manslaughter.

Northern Irish lorry driver, Christopher Kennedy, 24, and Valentin Calota, 38, a pickup driver from Romania, were both convicted of conspiring to smuggle people into the country unlawfully.

An image of the team receiving their award from Essex Police and Crime Commissioner Roger Hirst is attached. From L-R Roger Hirst, PC Matt Martin, Sgt Rob Webber, PSE Vickie Webber and Sgt Martin Andrews.