Eight suspected illegal immigrants discovered in lorry in the West Midlands

Thames Valley Police initially tracked the HGV as it headed northbound on the M40 motorway from London.

At 10am yesterday neighbouring Warwickshire Police were contacted and told the lorry was heading towards Stratford-upon-Avon.

Officers traced the lorry to an industrial estate in Atherstone-on-Stour and found eight men and women from Syria and Iraq in the back.

Police confirmed one man was taken to hospital while the rest of the foreign nationals were handed over to the Home Office.

The discovery came a day after police arrested four suspected illegal immigrants who were seen jumping out of a lorry on the M6.

Police swooped on the men as they fled a lorry between junction 6 and 7 of the motorway shortly after 8am on Thursday.

Last month 12 suspected illegal immigrants were found in the back of a refrigerated lorry on the border between Wolverhampton and Staffordshire after police received a panicked 999 call from a man in the back of the HGV.

Officers traced the call to a mobile phone used by one of the men and officers swooped on the vehicle near junction 10a of the motorway near Hilton Services.

The total of suspected illegal immigrants being stopped in the Midlands stands at 31 since the end of August.