An interpreter charged with plotting to smuggle Chinese immigrants to the UK, wiped records from her computer after 58 people were found dead in a lorry, a court has heard.

Ying Guo destroyed eight files on the morning after the bodies were discovered in Dover, Kent, last June.

Another five files were accessed, but not wiped, during the same 20-minute period, Maidstone Crown Court was told.

Fifty four men and four women perished during the five-hour ferry crossing from Zeebrugge in Belgium. Two men survived.

The immigrants suffocated after the only air vent on the side of the lorry container was closed, allegedly by its Dutch driver.

Lorry driver Perry Wacker, 32, of Rotterdam, Holland, is charged with 58 counts of manslaughter and four counts of conspiracy to smuggle people into Britain.

Miss Guo, of South Woodford, Essex, is jointly charged with Mr Wacker on another count of conspiracy to smuggle immigrants into this country. The pair deny all charges.

Bank records

Christopher Crute, a forensic computer analyst with Kent Police, examined the hard drive from the computer seized at Miss Guo's address in Essex.

He found that a total of 13 files were accessed on the computer between 1145 BST and 1205 BST on Monday June 19 last year.

Of these, eight were deleted.

The court was told that these included records of a Midland Bank account in Marble Arch, London, and the CV of her partner You Yi, which she used to work illegally as a translator in this country.

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

The trial continues.