A man has been jailed for 10 months after admitting to helping smuggle people into the UK a few weeks before 39 migrants died in the Essex lorry tragedy.
Kitchen fitter Gazmir Nuzi, 43, was on the fringes of the smuggling ring, but not a member.
A fortnight before the 39 Vietnamese nationals died in a trailer, Nuzi was involved in a similar, successful smuggling operation.
He had met a lorry when it dropped off illegal immigrants from Purfleet docks at a remote Essex farm from where most were driven to a safe house in south London.
Nuzi, an Albanian, was there to collect his nephew and another man, who had been picked up with the others in France.
He said he dropped off the second man, also an Albanian, and never saw him again, but took his nephew home with him to Tottenham, north London.
Nuzi was arrested soon after the discovery of the bodies in the second operation and pleaded guilty to an immigration charge.
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones told the court: "Nuzi turned up to help those two migrants on the last leg of their journey.
"So he has pleaded guilty to assisting in unlawful immigration, but in his case his crime relates specifically to those two individuals, and he was not part of the wider scheme. His involvement was limited and specific."
Defence lawyer Icah Peart QC told the Old Bailey that before his nephew arrived illegally in the UK, Nuzi had tried to dissuade him from making the journey.
He said: "He was dragged into this business by his wayward nephew for whom he felt responsible to pick him up and accommodate him."
