A restaurant’s licence has been revoked after the Home Office found it was employing people who did not have permission to work in the UK.

The Indiaana restaurant in the High Street, Ramsey, was found to have five people working there illegally when immigration officers visited in February.

The Home Office fined the restaurant £20,000 and asked Huntingdonshire District Council to review its premises licence.

Cambridgeshire Constabulary supported the Homes Office application and said some of the evidence found by immigration officers raised ‘modern slavery red flags’.

A Home Office report presented to the district council’s licensing sub-committee meeting this week (July 17) said five “immigration offenders” were found at the restaurant.

Two of the individuals told officers they were not employed there, but lived in the flats above the restaurant. They said they were cooking their own dinner in the restaurant kitchen at the time.

However, the report said officers did not believe this was the case, referencing how one individual became ‘agitated’ when talking about whether they worked at the restaurant.

The report said the five individuals had overstayed their visas, and explained that some had been applying for ‘leave to remain in the UK’.

The report said some workers told officers that they lived in the upstairs accommodation rent free, and that they did not know when they would be paid, or how much they would be paid for their work.

At the committee meeting, a licensing officer from Cambridgeshire Constabulary said the force supported the Home Office request to remove the licence, and said what had been described raised ‘modern slavery red flags’.

They said: “Modern day slavery extremely hard to identify and even harder to prosecute at court.

“The main reason exploiters target those most vulnerable in the community is it is very hard for victims to come forward as they believe their current situation is better than their previous situation.

“They become totally reliant on their exploiters for food, work, transportation and accommodation.

“[In this case] the owners controlled accommodation for the workers and their employment, in these circumstances this is a red flag for modern day slavery.

“In a situation like these concerns for us remain unless there is full documentation, in relation to pay slips showing how they are paid, making sure National Insurance is paid, but at the moment we do not have that evidence.

“In this situation we know the workers had no right to work in the UK, which means those workers were even more vulnerable and extremely easy targets for exploitation.”

The licence holder did not attend the meeting, and no representative of the licence holder or from the restaurant itself attended the meeting.

The sub-committee went into a private session to consider the application. When they returned, a committee member said they had decided to “revoke the licence immediately”.

She said the sub-committee believed the licence holder had been supported by the licensing authority to fulfil the terms and conditions of the licence, but said they had “ignored advice” and had “committed a criminal offence” by employing five disqualified workers.

The Indiaana restaurant has been approached for comment.