Illegal workers are held in restaurant raids
Nov 15 2008 by Dan Warburton, The Journal
TWO illegal workers were discovered at a upmarket Quayside restaurant following a blitz by immigration officers.
The bogus employees – an Iraqi aged 24 and a 34-year-old Congolese – were discovered during raids by the UK Border Agency at Uno’s Trattoria, on Newcastle’s Quayside.
Two employees were sacked immediately after it emerged they did not have visas to work in the UK.
Now the business, owned by Newcastle comedian Bobby Pattinson, could face fines of up to £10,000 if it is found management did not carry out the proper checks on those they employed.
In a separate raid, at the Imperial Restaurant, on Durham Road, Gateshead, two Chinese men were found working illegally.
One was also arrested on suspicion of entering the country illegally and proceedings to remove both from the UK have begun.
A visit was then paid to Chapman General Dealers/Food Plus, on Finchale Road, Hebburn.
Officers discovered a Pakistani man was there working illegally. He tried to run away but was arrested and has been detained.
The owners of these businesses were also served with Notices of Potential Liability, a process which investigates whether they did enough to check the immigration status of those they employed. If it is found not enough was done, fines of £10,000 can be issued. Uno’s owner Mr Pattinson, son of Bobby, said: “Nobody was arrested. They were advised to go to the Jobcentre to confirm whether they were allowed to work.
“After they had been, they came back and told us they were not meant to be working, which was a surprise to us, and as soon as we found out, they were finished straight away.
“We would be happy to speak to anyone from the UK Border Agency because we thought we needed copies of their passports and National Insurance numbers, which we thought we had.”
Nigel Tsang, company secretary of the Imperial Restaurant, said: “One of the people was an asylum-seeker who provided evidence he was allowed to work when we first took over the business. We have since been informed that their work permit has been revoked, meaning they cannot work any more, but they are not in the country illegally.
“The second person had provided us with paperwork, which we checked out, but we have now been informed that it was forged. The whole process has made us more aware of the extra checks we need to make.”
The manager of the Food Plus store in Hebburn was not available for comment.
