Fishing firm employees recognised as victims of modern slavery

Foreigners working for a Scottish fishing company have been officially recognised as victims of modern slavery
A major BBC investigation has revealed serious allegations of mistreatment and abuse of migrant workers by the firm TN Trawlers.
Crucially, the broadcaster discovered that the Home Office determined that 18 individual employees from the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka and Ghana had been trafficked.
The investigation, carried out jointly by BBC Scotland’s Disclosure programme and Radio 4’s File on 4, comes amid growing concerns about the treatment of foreign fishermen in Scottish waters.
Last month the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), the trade union representing international mariners, issued a report warning of the potential trafficking and abuse of foreign nationals in the UK scampi fleet, most of which is Scottish.
The BBC reports that in 2012 police in Dumfries and Galloway launched Operation Alto, an investigation into human trafficking and labour abuse at TN Trawlers, which was owned by the Nicholson family.
They said 18 former TN Trawlers employees passed into the Home Office’s national referral mechanism, a system which identifies and supports victims of human trafficking.
The Home Office defines human trafficking as a situation where a person is “coerced or deceived into a situation where they are exploited”. The men, the broadcaster said, were all given recognition by the Home Office that they had been trafficked.
Joel Quince, from the Philippines, was among several former TN workers who were interviewed by Disclosure.
He was one of about 30 seafarers who arrived in the UK to join the Annan firm between 2011 and 2013, mostly from the Philippines. All the men the BBC spoke to described shortages of proper clothing, food and water.
On 22 August 2012, Quince was aboard one of TN’s trawlers, the Philomena, off the coast of Northern Ireland during rough weather.
He was fixing a broken link in the metal nets when the towing bar swung up. He leapt out of the way, but fell and hit his head on the deck. His crew mates estimated he was unconscious for up to 15 minutes. When the sailor woke up with a bandage on his head, he asked his skipper, Tom Nicholson, if they were going to hospital.
“He said: ‘No, we’re not going to the hospital. We continue fishing’,” Quince said.
Joel was given paracetamol by the skipper and his head was bandaged. The Philomena didn’t turn around and head for the port of Troon in Ayrshire until 11 hours after the accident.
Ten years later, in October 2022, at Hamilton sheriff court, Thomas Nicholson senior, the company director, and TN Trawlers pleaded guilty to failing to get adequate care for Quince. The Crown accepted a not guilty plea to withholding some of the Filipino crewmen’s passports without reasonable excuse.
Despite the Home Office’s conclusion that the men were trafficking victims, the case did not involve charges of trafficking or modern slavery.
Nicholson senior was fined £13,500 and ordered to pay Quince £3,000 in compensation.
A spokesman for TN Group told the BBC it disputed suggestions that workers were mistreated. The company said it always provided food and accommodation to workers and they were “always free to come and go when ashore”.
He said: “The overwhelming experience of our workers was that they were well treated and well remunerated. We dispute many of the accounts put to us, in some cases over a decade on.
“We absolutely refute any allegation of modern slavery or human trafficking.”
He said the company regretted the delay in bringing Quince ashore for medical treatment.
“We fell short on that occasion. We have accepted responsibility, compensated and we apologise to that individual.
“Working conditions on the high seas, sometimes in dangerous waters and in a confined environment, are extremely difficult,” he said.
• Disclosure: Slavery at Sea, Monday August 19 at 9pm, BBC One Scotland, and on iPlayer.• File on 4: Invisible Souls, Tuesday August 20 at 8pm, BBC Radio 4, and on BBC Sounds.