A moment that sticks in Kris' memory is when he was with a local cockler following a shift on the sands.

Li Hua, the only cockler to be rescued alive from the water on the night of February 5, said Lin Liang Ren was a "mean boss" who exploited the Chinese illegal immigrants for his own profit.

One cockler said: "We're penniless, so we had to come."

A COCKLER says he will lose out on thousands of pounds as Natural Resources Wales close cockle beds on the Dee Estuary for the season.

As the fifth cockling season gets under way on the Dee Estuary, one apprentice cockler is following in his father's footsteps as he takes to the beds for the first time after obtaining his full licence.

Professional cockler Glynn Hyndman, who has seen Liverpool youngsters working in South Wales, said: "They are playing with their lives."

Dee cockles fetch roughly PS1.30 per kilogram meaning it is possible for a cockler to earn PS200 on each tide.

One cockler, who knows victims of the vandalism, said the attacks happened between Tuesday at 11pm and Wednesday at 3am.

Now a Morecambe cockler has claimed a fight over territory a week earlier may have pushed the Chinese victims to make the fatal decision to hunt for cockles during the night.

Dramatic footage of a cockler stranded in icy waters was yesterday seen by a jury trying five people in connection with the Morecambe Bay cockling disaster.

They only got half what a British cockler would get for a bag - pounds 12 instead of pounds 24 - but they earned enough to send thousands of pounds back home to their families in China."

One cockler, Shaun Scourfield, 37, from Prestatyn in north Wales, said: "It was bitterly cold out there and, with what has happened recently, it wasn't very nice.