The A12 was closed both ways while police searched for illegal immigrants last night.

The dual carriageway was shut near Hatfield Peverel for 20 minutes shortly after 8pm on Wednesday evening with the police helicopter circling.

A number of illegal immigrants were detained after the jumped out of a lorry.

The NPAS Boreham police helicopter team tweeted they had been called to assist the search of the A12. 

It said: "Assist @EssexPoliceUK with search of A12 for illegal immigrants out of a lorry, a number detained area cleared."  

A driver who was travelling from Billericay to Colchester and got caught in the traffic, said: “We just ground to a halt a little before Hatfield Peverel. I saw a helicopter circling for ages.

“At first I thought there had been a crash and it was the air ambulance.

“No cars the other way were coming past so I thought it was going to land, but as it flew a bit closer I saw it was the police helicopter.

“It kept hovering over the fields either side of the A12.

“We were stopped for about twenty minutes and a few police cars went passed.

“People were getting out of their cars and turning their engines off."

A spokesman for Essex Police said: "We were contacted shortly before 8pm yesterday concerning a number of people exiting a lorry in a layby near the northbound A12 at the turnoff to Hatfield Peverel.

"Officers attended the scene and six people were detained on suspicion of immigration offences.

"They have been passed over to Border Force officials."

A spokesman for the Home Office said: “Immigration Enforcement was contacted by Essex Police on Wednesday 16 August after police attended an incident on the A12 near to Hatfield Peverel.

“A family of six, consisting of a man, a woman and four children who presented themselves as being from Iraq, were referred to Immigration Enforcement. The Home Office will progress their cases in line with the immigration rules.

“Where someone has no right to remain in the UK, we will take action to remove them.

“Immigration Enforcement is an operational directorate within the Home Office responsible for enforcing immigration law.”