AN ILLEGAL worker has been arrested following a UK Border Agency raid on a Hampshire steakhouse.
Immigration officers visited the Porterhouse Steakhouse in Jewry Street, Winchester, after receiving intelligence about suspected illegal workers.
A 20-year-old Indian national, who worked at the restaurant as a kitchen porter, was arrested for being in the country illegally after his visa expired. He has been detained pending his removal from the UK.
The restaurant’s owners will now have to prove they carried out the correct right-to-work checks on their employee, or they could be fined up to £10,000.
Porterhouse head chef Bimal Kumar said the man was given a job after he provided a copy of a Portuguese passport which restaurant bosses believed gave him a right to work in the country.
“At no point did we know the guy was illegal,” he said.
Lyn Sari, head of the UK Border Agency’s Hampshire and IOW immigration team, said: “Our officers carry out hundreds of operations like this across the area every year, and where we find people who are in the UK illegally we will seek to remove them.
“We also want to get the message out to employers that they have a legal obligation to ensure their staff have the right to work in the UK. If they don’t carry out those checks they could face heavy fines.”
Employers unsure of the steps they need to take to avoid employing illegal workers can visit the website at ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/ advice-for-employers or can call the UK Border Agency’s employers’ helpline on 0300 123 4699.
