ELEVEN suspected illegal immigrants were found in the back of a lorry after the driver spotted their heads when he looked in his side mirrors.

The Albanian families had boarded the articulated lorry in France but were spotted by the driver last Wednesday afternoon when he was travelling on the M40 between Beaconsfield and Stokenchurch.

PC Andy Wayland from Amersham Traffic Police said they were called to the scene at 2pm to take away the immigrants.

He said: "I took them out of the back of a lorry and there were groups of families which were mostly men, wives and their babies and there was also an older child.

"It was an artic lorry from France and they had done all the security checks but they still got through.

"The driver was alerted by bodies hanging outside the curtain. He saw hands, heads and a torso and had to stop. None of them knew each other, they just all got in the back. They didn't speak English."

He added that they put the 15-year-old boy into a children's home, but the rest were taken to the refugee centre near Heathrow.

He said the lorry driver had produced documents to confirm it had been checked by French staff when the lorry had originated from near Paris.

A Home Office spokesman confirmed that all the refugees were Albanian and ten of them were released into the refugee arrivals project. They will be considered for asylum which will provide them with accommodation and advice on how to apply for asylum which will be considered by the immigration service.