Apple pickers in Northern Ireland were forced to scavenge for out-of-date food in supermarket bins, survive on below-minimum-wage incomes and live in an unheated outbuilding, it emerged this week.
Romanian gangmaster Gheorghe Ionas has been fined £500 by Craigavon Magistrates Court, a ruling he is planning to appeal.
The Gangmasters Licensing Authority expressed its dismay at the decision, which it said would not deter similar illegal practices.
Officers from the GLA and the police searched the home of Ionas in Lurgan early on the morning of 2 October last year. Behind the terraced house they found three Romanian men sleeping in an outbuilding made out of bare breeze blocks, with no heating and limited electricity.
The building, in which as many as five men were living at one time, was later declared 'unfit for human habitation' by a Craigavon Borough Council environmental health officer.
The court heard that the men were employed full-time as apple pickers at orchards in County Armagh, and paid a below-minimum-wage £100 a week.
Ionas also took money from the workers for food, transport and accommodation, according to prosecutor Greg Peacock.
Ionas pleaded guilty to a single charge of acting as a gangmaster without a licence, an offence that carries a maximim tariff of 10 years in prison. In addition to his fine we was ordered to pay £46 towards court costs and £15 offender's levy.
GLA chief executive Paul Broadbent derided the £500 sentence, saying he was 'shocked and appalled'. 'I will be writing to the public prosecutor for Northern Ireland to seek leave to appeal this derisory sentence and express my utter dismay that slavery - for that is what this was - is seemingly not recognised in the court where this defendent appeared.'
Three of the men were classified as potential victims of trafficking and given access to specialist support services. They have since returned to Romania.
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