Morecambe Bay cockling tragedy: 20 years on, remembering the victims and their impact on modern slavery law

By Jill Timms, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Surrey

On February 5 2004, 23 people drowned while picking cockles on the beach of Morecambe Bay in Lancashire. The victims were illegally smuggled Chinese immigrants, brought via Liverpool by criminal gangmasters, and forced to work in highly dangerous conditions, scavenging for shellfish.

When the tide rushed in that night, only 15 were able to leave the water. Twenty-one bodies were pulled from the sea, with only Li Hua being rescued.…

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