The London [Images] police took into custody three Indians for allegedly entering the United Kingdom illegally.

They travelled in a delivery lorry from Belgium and were without food and water for four days.

The staff at a timber yard near the Bristol international airport was shocked when they found the three people hiding in the back of a lorry, the police said.

They spoke little English but managed to convey that they had been in the lorry for four days without food or water. They said they did not know they were in England [Images].

The managing director of the timber yard, Richard Goldstone said, "The lorry had come over from Belgium on the ferry with a load of timber. When the driver, who was also Belgian, opened the lorry with one of our forklifts there were three men inside.

"They said they were from India," he said, adding that their first question was "What country are we in?"

"They also said they had been in the lorry for four days, so the first thing we did was give them some food and water. The driver had not known about it. He was absolutely dumbfounded.

"We all felt incredibly sorry for them because they had spent four days in the heat without knowing where they were going. We rang the police who alerted immigration at Bristol Airport. The men made no attempt to run away."

Police spokesman Wayne Baker said: "We had reports that a delivery from Eastern Europe was being made to a company in Brockley Coombe Road. Three men believed to be illegal immigrants were arrested and taken to Weston-Super-Mare police station and will be handed over to the immigration services."