The Gangmasters Licensing Act has seen its first successful prosecution.
Perth labour provider Fiona Jane Clark was found guilty on April 9 of contravening the 2004 act by operating as a gangmaster to the potato sector without a licence. She pleaded guilty to acting as a gangmaster between October and December 2006 and she now awaits sentencing scheduled for May 29 at the sheriff’s court in Forfar.
The Gangmasters Licencing Authority (GLA) launched enforcement investigations against the gangmaster shortly after the offence of operating without a licence was introduced in October 2006.
Although Clark did apply for a licence, the application was refused for reasons including a lack of identity checks on the workers to ensure legal working, no deductions for tax and national insurance on several pay slips and no evidence that tax and national insurance had ever been paid to HMRC. Even though the licence was refused she continued trading without a licence by supplying workers to pick, process and pack potatoes.
During the period when Clark was supplying workers, the further criminal offence of using an unlicensed gangmaster was introduced in December 2006. The labour user that Clark was found to be supplying to after the introduction of the labour user offence, received a written warning regarding use of an unlicensed gangmaster.
Paul Whitehouse chairman of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority said: “There is no hiding place for unlicensed gangmasters. We will seek them out and use the full force of our powers to deal with them. Any gangmaster operating without a licence needs to be lucky all of the time, we only need to be lucky once to catch them.
“Our lawyers are already looking at further prosecution cases and we expect to see more unlicensed gangmasters in court. We will continue to pass all Scottish cases to the Procurator Fiscal to consider for prosecution.”
To date, the GLA has revoked 55 licences.
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