FIFTEEN people were arrested on suspicion of immigration offences yesterday after being found in a lorry’s trailer, police said.

Thames Valley Police stopped a large goods vehicle on the M40 near Banbury and found 15 people inside its trailer.

Spokeswoman Charlotte Redman said: “We got a call at 6am from one of two Romanian lorry drivers driving a lorry on M40 that they could hear banging in their lorry.

“Roads policing officers attended and safely guided the lorry off the motorway, arrested 15 men and women on suspicion of immigration offences, and handed over to immigration officers.”

She added that the lorry drivers were not arrested.

On Monday two Afghan men were arrested in Cowley on suspicion of entering the country illegally.

Thames Valley Police were called to Garsington Road at about 6.15am after reports that suspected illegal immigrants were on a lorry, spokesman James Williams said.

Logistics firm Unipart said its staff had noticed the two men outside the premises and they called the police.

The two men were arrested and then passed onto immigration officials, who said the men initially claimed to be children, but were found to be adults.

It came just weeks after five suspected illegal immigrants were arrested after they were seen jumping off a lorry at the Unipart depot and were later detained by the Home Office on July 8.