Staff ‘handled like slaves’ on Scottish fishing boats

Dozens of staff from around the globe could have been trafficked into the UK to work for a small family-owned Scottish fishing agency, a BBC investigation has revealed.

Thirty-five males from the Philippines, Ghana, India and Sri Lanka had been recognised as victims of contemporary slavery by the Residence Workplace after being referred to it between 2012 and 2020.

The employees had been employed by TN Trawlers and its sister corporations, owned by the Nicholson household, primarily based within the small city of Annan on the southern coast of Scotland.

The TN Group denied any allegation of contemporary slavery or human trafficking and stated its staff had been effectively handled and effectively paid.

The corporate was the main focus of two long-running legal investigations however no circumstances of human trafficking or fashionable slavery have come to trial, though among the males waited years to provide proof.

Whereas TN Trawlers’ lead director, Thomas Nicholson, was underneath lively investigation, TN Group corporations continued recruiting new workers from internationally.

Skilled fisherman Joel Quince was 28 when he landed at Heathrow Airport in 2012, thrilled to have secured a job as a deckhand with TN trawlers.

Joel had a younger household again dwelling within the Philippines, hundreds of miles away. He had been anticipating to earn earnings working within the UK. He was to be paid $1,012 (£660) a month for a 48-hour week.

He caught a bus from London to Carlisle, the place, he says, he was picked up by the proprietor’s son, Tom Nicholson Jr.

“On our option to go to the boat he advised us: ‘You must give me your paperwork’ – so with out hesitation I gave all my paperwork to them,” he stated.

Joel says he was then taken straight to the fishing floor to start out working.

However he was shocked to search out that his boat was the Philomena slightly than the Mattanja, which was the one vessel he was authorised to work on underneath the phrases of his visa. “This was already one thing fishy for me,” he stated

He claims that as an alternative of the 48-hour week he had been advised about, he was working 18 hours a day, seven days per week whereas the Philomena was out fishing.

On his month-to-month wage of £660, it meant Joel was incomes lower than the UK minimal wage – though at the moment there was no authorized requirement to pay it to fishermen like him.

Joel was one in every of about 30 seafarers who arrived within the UK to hitch TN Trawlers between 2011 and 2013, principally from the Philippines. They joined dredgers trawling for scallops alongside the UK shoreline.

These dredgers, constructed within the Seventies and 80s, work by towing metallic nets alongside the seabed. They scrape up shellfish, in addition to stones and bycatch – the opposite marine life which will get caught within the nets. Deckhands throw again the stones and pack the scallops in ice under deck.

A number of of the boys the BBC spoke to had little or no fishing expertise. All describe working shift patterns as gruelling as Joel’s or worse.

Joel stated he struggled to stand up to go to work as a result of he was so exhausted – however he didn’t complain as a result of his colleagues had been additionally struggling.

“If I cease working, there’s three individuals struggling, not getting their relaxation, as a result of the operation retains persevering with. They received’t cease.”

He stated there was not sufficient ingesting water on board the vessels, and the crew had been lowered to consuming tomatoes from the shops to moist their throats. He additionally stated that on one event a skipper threw an empty Coke can on the crew.

All the boys the BBC spoke to described shortages of correct clothes, meals and water.

Jaype Rubi was a younger Filipino when he labored on board the TN dredger Sea Girl in 2012.

“Choosing up and throwing out rocks is admittedly tiring,” he stated.

“The boat had CCTV, so the skipper may watch us. If we cease, he’d pull down the window and say: ‘Why are you resting’?”

Jaype stated it was “tremendous chilly” and there was not sufficient meals.

When he spoke to his mum on the telephone, he began crying. “I stated: ‘I need to go dwelling as a result of it is a nightmare engaged on that boat’.”

Jaype stated he was subjected to verbal abuse and was handled “like a slave”.

Different males stated that, regardless of arriving within the UK on 48-hour transit visa, they had been advised to work onshore within the TN yard at Annan, in breach of their visa entitlement.

One man, Jovito Abiero, advised the BBC he was typically despatched to the house of the corporate proprietor Tom Nicholson to do gardening.

On 22 August 2012, Joel was aboard the Philomena off the coast of Northern Eire throughout tough climate.

He was fixing a damaged hyperlink within the metallic nets when the towing bar swung up. He leapt out of the way in which – however fell and hit his head on the deck.

His crew mates estimated he was unconscious for as much as quarter-hour.

When Joel awakened with a bandage on his head, he requested his skipper – Tom Nicholson Jr – in the event that they had been going to hospital.

“He stated: ‘No, we’re not going to the hospital. We proceed fishing’,” stated Joel.

Joel was given paracetamol by the skipper and his head was bandaged. The Philomena didn’t flip round and head for the port of Troon in Ayrshire till 11 hours after the accident.

Joel bought off the Philomena, by no means to return. He discovered help on the Fishermen’s Mission, a harbourside charity that helps seafarers.

At the moment the mission was run by two sisters, Paula Daly and Karen Burston, who helped Joel get medical assist. That they had been listening to rumours about TN boats for a while.

“In 2012, it turned actually fairly abundantly clear that we had been getting the identical message from fairly just a few completely different crew,” stated Paula.

“There have been so many issues that had been so improper,” added Karen.

Police forces on a number of UK coasts had lengthy been conscious of allegations about TN Trawlers.

The corporate had been prosecuted in 2007 for unlawful catches value tons of of hundreds of kilos. Tom Nicholson and TN Trawlers had been ordered to pay £473,000 underneath proceeds of crime legal guidelines.

They had been additionally ordered to pay nearly £150,000 in fines and prices after the Maritime and Coastguard Company discovered a string of defects and security breaches on vessels between 2009 and 2011.

A 2012 police briefing, seen by the BBC, additionally famous six Filipino fishermen swam ashore from TN boats and complained of mistreatment.

That 12 months, police in Dumfries and Galloway launched Operation Alto, an investigation into human trafficking and labour abuse at TN Trawlers.

Eighteen former TN Trawlers workers – together with Joel – handed into the Residence Workplace’s Nationwide Referral Mechanism, a system which identifies and helps victims of human trafficking.

File on 4: Invisible Souls

Fishermen from the Philippines, Ghana and Sri Lanka communicate out for the primary time about how badly they are saying they had been handled by a Scottish fishing firm.

Pay attention on BBC Radio 4 at 20:00 on Tuesday 20 August or on BBC Sounds.

Trendy slavery is a time period that may embody human trafficking and slavery, servitude and compelled or obligatory labour.

The Residence Workplace defines the essence of human trafficking as a scenario the place an individual is “coerced or deceived right into a scenario the place they’re exploited”.

Below this steering, the boys had been all given recognition by the Residence Workplace that that they had been trafficked.

They had been taken to a protected home someplace in Scotland, then police requested them to remain within the UK to assist with additional enquiries and act as witnesses when the case got here to courtroom.

TN Trawlers continued to recruit, switching its fundamental recruitment operation from East Asia to West Africa.

In June 2013, Gideon Mensah from Ghana signed as much as work on the TN scalop dredger Noordzee. He stated he quickly discovered himself in the identical scenario because the Filipinos – overworked and undernourished.

Gideon advised the BBC his wages had been diverted to his recruitment agent again dwelling, leaving him with £50 money in hand every month – simply £1.66 per day.

He was later recognised as a sufferer of contemporary slavery by the Residence Workplace and spent a number of years on file as a witness for forthcoming prosecutions.

In 2017, 5 years after Joel Quince stepped off the Philomena at Troon harbour, 25-year outdated Vishal Sharma left India and arrived in London on a transit visa.

He’d signed a contract with a distinct firm to work within the engine room of a Belgian tanker for 15 months.

However his agent in India then advised him to journey to a distinct assembly level within the south of England, and he was taken to the Noordzee.

“I requested: ‘Why am I working there? It’s not my ship… I’m not a fisherman’.”

Vishal claims he was threatened with deportation if he didn’t comply.

He spent three weeks on the trawler and says he was by no means paid.

He claims he labored 22-hour days, had little meals, and that his boots started to crumble within the seawater.

Males continued to reach from Ghana, together with Augustus Mensah and Gershon Norvivor. They each described being put to work within the Nicholsons’ compound earlier than being shipped out, and each ended up engaged on a vessel referred to as on the Sea Girl.

The BBC has seen cost schedules given to each males upon employment. Each had been to earn £850 monthly, with a further money cost of £50.

Based mostly on a 48-hour working week, they’d obtain £4.68 an hour.

The circumstances they alleged had been just like these described to the BBC by the employees from 2012.

“We had been in need of meals and in need of water,” says Gershon.

He claimed deckhands would drink washing water from the ship’s rusty tank. When the tank was empty, they’d soften the ice used to pack the scallops.

“We went to the fish room with a bucket or a sack and you set an ice block in… you set it on the range… and the fellows would make espresso with it.”

On 6 December 2017, a dredge web filled with scallops swung and crashed into Augustus’ head and knocked him out. Gershon did what he may to assist his pal, rinsing away the blood.

The crew managed to get phrase to the police onshore in Portsmouth.

“Once we had been rescued by the police we had been very joyful,” stated Augustus.

Augustus, Gershon and Vishal, together with six different crew members from Ghana, India and Sri Lanka, had been taken into the Nationwide Referral Mechanism system and recognised by the Residence Workplace as victims of contemporary slavery. They had been requested to remain within the UK as potential witnesses within the ongoing investigation into Thomas Nicholson Snr and TN Trawlers.

After a five-year wait, the case was dropped after among the males did not establish suspects throughout an id parade.

In a letter from the Crown Workplace and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) this 12 months, Vishal was advised that, whereas prosecutors stated there was proof a criminal offense had been dedicated, there was not sufficient proof to show the id of the perpetrator.

The Filipinos’ case lastly reached Hamilton Sheriff Court docket in October 2022, some 10 years after the boys had been faraway from the boats.

Thomas Nicholson Snr and TN Trawlers pleaded responsible to failing to get enough take care of Joel Quince. The Crown accepted his not responsible plea to withholding among the Filipino crewmen’s passports with out cheap excuse.

Regardless of the Residence Workplace’s conclusion that the boys had been trafficking victims, the case didn’t contain prices of trafficking or fashionable slavery.

Thomas Nicholson Snr was fined £13,500 and ordered to pay Joel £3,000 in compensation.

Textual content message exchanges between Nicholson Snr and the vessel’s skipper Tom Nicholson Jr on the day of the accident had been learn out in courtroom, through which the daddy instructed his son to not take Joel ashore for medical therapy.

After listening to the messages, Joel advised the BBC: “He was a satan with a human picture. He doesn’t see me as an individual… he doesn’t see us.”

Thomas Nicholson Snr was the director of TN Trawlers, TN Enterprises, Sea Girl Trawlers, and Olivia Jean. The businesses owned a minimum of six scallop dredgers.

A spokesman for TN Group stated it disputed strategies that staff had been mistreated.

It stated it all the time offered meals and lodging to staff and that they had been “all the time free to come back and go when ashore”.

He stated: “The overwhelming expertise of our staff was that they had been effectively handled and effectively remunerated. We dispute most of the accounts put to us, in some circumstances over a decade on.

“We completely refute any allegation of contemporary slavery or human trafficking and our many testimonials and long-term workers are testomony to that.”

He stated the corporate regretted the delay in bringing Joel Quince ashore for medical therapy.

“We fell brief on that event. We’ve got accepted accountability, compensated and we apologise to that particular person,” stated the spokesman.

“Working circumstances on the excessive seas, typically in harmful waters and in a confined setting, are extraordinarily troublesome.”

The Crown Workplace stated it was absolutely dedicated to tackling human trafficking.

“We recognise that the time taken in coping with these complicated and difficult issues has been troublesome for these affected,” stated a spokesperson.

“COPFS cope with each case by itself particular person info and circumstances and takes motion the place it assesses there may be ample admissible proof {that a} crime has been dedicated and it’s within the public curiosity to take action.”

Life after TN Trawlers has seen combined fortunes for its former crewmen.

Lots of these concerned in Operation Alto have had their permission to stay within the UK prolonged, some indefinitely. This allows them to work within the UK and help their households – one thing that they had all the time needed.

The lads from Ghana interviewed by the BBC have seen their go away to stay expire, that means they face the opportunity of leaving the UK.

Nonetheless, all the boys spoke of their bitterness at working for the corporate – and their expertise of the justice system within the UK.

Joel Quince stated his eyes had been opened.

“I see now the way it works,” he stated.

“That is how your UK regulation is completed… You favour the rich individuals, and also you don’t care concerning the poor.”

Extra reporting by Rachel Coburn and Anton Ferrie