The only air vent on the lorry was alegedly closed by the driver

Miss Guo used the solicitors to get her smuggled clients released on bail if they were caught by the British authorities.

She would then tell the immigrants what to put on their bogus asylum applications, the court was told.

Solicitor Kailash Sabapathy of London firm Sata & Co Solicitors, told the court he found it "difficult to cope" with the numbers of Chinese people Miss Guo was pushing his way.

Other solicitors giving evidence on the seventh day of the trial said they were contacted by Miss Guo, who called herself Jenny, but also used the Chinese name You Yi.

They said she was looking to be paid for work as an interpreter, after 50 Chinese immigrants were arrested on a ferry from Zeebrugge on 5 April last year.

Suffocation

But Miss Guo's operation was uncovered after 60 Chinese immigrants tried to enter Britain illegally hidden in the back of a sealed lorry container, laden with tomatoes.

Port officials found the dead bodies of 54 men and four women when they stopped and inspected the lorry at Dover's eastern docks.

Only two men survived the tragic journey, which included five-hour ferry crossing from Zeebrugge in Belgium.

The dead are believed to have suffocated after the only air-vent on the side of the lorry container was closed, allegedly by Mr Wacker, during the ferry trip.

Mobile destroyed

Home Office pathologist Dr Michael Heath, who conducted post mortem examinations on the bodies, said they died from cerebral anoxia - a lack of oxygen to the brain and a build up of carbon dioxide.

He also said that if people panic and are distressed they consume available oxygen 20 times faster than normal, which could have played a factor in the Chinese suffocating during the ferry crossing.

The jury earlier heard how Miss Guo destroyed her mobile phone after her number was found on some of the immigrants who died.

Earlier in the trial case worker Chandika Walpita said Miss Guo had asked him to take on the asylum application cases of 80 Chinese illegal immigrants between December 1999 and February 2000.

The trial was adjourned until Monday.