He has been remanded in custody after being charged with 39 counts of manslaughter.

Robinson will next appear at the Old Bailey on November 25 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.

Essex Police said a man and woman, both 38, from Warrington, were arrested in Cheshire on Friday and a 46-year-old man from Northern Ireland was arrested at Stansted Airport later the same day.

All three had been questioned on suspicion of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people.

On Sunday police said the man and woman from Warrington, named locally as haulage boss Thomas Maher and his wife Joanna, were released on bail until November 11.

The Northern Ireland man has been bailed until November 13.

Essex Police also confirmed that a man arrested in Dublin by Irish police over an unconnected matter on Saturday "is a person of interest" in their investigation.

He is understood to be the 23-year-old Northern Irish lorry driver who is said to have delivered the container to Zeebrugge.

Mr Van der Sypt told Belgian media: "We are also looking for those responsible for this drama. We suspect that even more people are involved. It is quite possible that the driver did not know what he was transporting."

The 39 bodies were discovered in a trailer compartment in the early hours of Wednesday at the Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays, Essex.

Detectives are now working on the largest mass fatality victim identification process in the force's history.

Police initially said the victims were Chinese, although a number of Vietnamese families have described how they fear their loved ones are among the dead.

Some of the victims are said to have paid thousands of pounds to traffickers to guarantee their safe passage to the UK, from where they would be able to carry out work that would give them money to send home.

Detectives are also investigating a "wider conspiracy" after claims surfaced that the lorry could have been part of a convoy of three carrying around 100 people.

Boris Johnson has pledged to do everything in his power to find those responsible for the deaths of 39 people who were found in a sealed lorry container in Grays, Essex, last week.