paul broadbent

GLA chief executive Paul Broadbent: Slender knew what he was doing was wrong

A Cambridge gangmaster who deliberately destroyed payslips to enable him to underpay workers has ‘suffered the shame of being exposed as a criminal’, say GLA bosses.

Martyn Slender, who admitted he deliberately destroyed payslips to enable him to underpay his workers has been given a 12-month prison sentence, that has been suspended for 12 months due to his previous good character.

The 45-year-old, who committed the offence while managing director of Slender Contracting in March, Cambridgeshire, also has to perform 200 hours of unpaid work.

Peterborough Magistrates’ Court was told that in one instance, a Latvian worker received £151 for five ten-hour days – the equivalent of less than half the national minimum wage.

Another worker was employed for 20 hours over two days, but after deductions were made from his pay packet he was shown to be in debt.

Despite being licensed Slender admitted on Friday that he had employed unlicensed labour providers to supply workers to harvest vegetables, in contravention of the Gangmasters Licensing Act.

Slender also confirmed he deliberately destroyed a number of payslips to enable him to underpay some of his employees.

GLA chief executive Paul Broadbent said: “Ultimately, Slender knew what he was doing was wrong but he decided the substantial additional profit he could make by unlawfully underpaying his workers, was too much to resist.

“As a result of his greed, he has lost his business, suffered the shame of being publicly exposed as a criminal and must work unpaid for a significant period as a result of his actions.”

District judge Ken Sheraton told the court that Slender’s offences were so serious they warranted a custodial sentence.

However, he added that as he was a man of previous good character and had entered an early guilty plea he would suspend the sentence for 12 months.

Slender was one of nine people arrested in a series of dawn raids in the March and Wisbech area on 15 October last year.

The large-scale operation involved around 300 officers in total from the GLA, Cambridgeshire Police and the National Crime Agency.

The licence of Slender Contracting was immediately suspended. At the time, the business had been supplying agricultural workers to harvest vegetable crops on a Fenland farm but it has now ceased trading.

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