News Archive - December 2010

Israeli workers discovered without UK work permits

30 Dec 2010 | Posted by Carl Thomas

Three employees without UK work permits have been discovered working in Swindon.

A 25-year-old woman and two men aged 22 and 24 were discovered by UK Border Agency (UKBA) staff in a Swindon shopping centre.

The three people were all Israeli citizens and were in the UK on visitor visas.

This type of UK visa does not carry the same rights as a UK work permit and as such the Israelis were not permitted to undertake paid employment.

UK immigration officers were operating on intelligence and with the full support and cooperation of the management team at Swindon Designer Outlet.

Jane Farleigh, UKBA regional director for the south-west, commented: "Illegal working has a serious impact on communities, taking jobs from those who are genuinely allowed to work.

"It is the legal responsibility of all employers to check that employees have the right to work in the UK. Businesses which operate outside the law should be warned that they will be found and they will be punished."

The report comes as another Israeli woman, aged 22, was arrested at a different stall in the same region for breaching her UK visa conditions.

Civil penalties, which are issued to employers who are found to have given jobs to illegal workers, can carry fines of up to £10,000 for each worker unless the firm can prove that it carried out the correct right-to-work checks.