The Home Office slapped a Turkish restaurant with a \u00a3135,000 fine after finding three illegal workers there.<\/p>\n
Hayat Restaurant in The Oval, Sidcup, could now lose its premises licence as officers from the government department call for Bexley Council to revoke it.<\/p>\n
Hayat Restaurant could lose its licence. Picture: Google Maps<\/p>\n
Members of the South London Immigration, Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) team visited Hayat on April 10, 2025, after it received intelligence that the business was employing illegal workers.<\/p>\n
Of the five staff members they found working, two men, from Uzbekistan, were identified as immigration offenders.<\/p>\n
The first said he had worked at Hayat for two months and had been given the job of cleaning tables after showing his employer his Asylum Registration Card (ARC) to prove his right to work in the UK.<\/p>\n
However, Home Office checks revealed that the man was issued a visit visa from August 2021, which was valid until February 2022.<\/p>\n
He arrived in the UK on August 16, 2021 and made three claims for protection over the next few years, all of which were refused. He had no right to work in the country at the time of the enforcement visit.<\/p>\n
The second man was found preparing food in the kitchen, and when he was interviewed in Russian, he revealed he had been working at Hayat for up to one year as a cook.<\/p>\n
The Home Office visited the restaurant twice. Stock picture<\/p>\n
He said he had been given the job by Halil Argun, Hayat\u2019s Designated Premises Supervisor (DPS) at the time.<\/p>\n
The man said he was paid \u00a360 a day for five-and-a-half hours\u2019 work, and admitted that he did not pay income tax or have a National Insurance number.<\/p>\n
The Home Office found that the man was issued a seasonal worker visa valid for eight months in 2021.<\/p>\n
During this ICE team visit, Hayat owner Alexandra Paiu identified herself via a phone call and said she did not personally manage hiring or right-to-work checks, instead leaving this responsibility to her accountant.<\/p>\n
Ms Paiu said she believed the two men were emergency staff used from time to time, and she had not been aware they lacked the necessary documentation to work legally.<\/p>\n
The South London ICE team returned to Hayat four months later on August 14, 2025. A man found working in the kitchen claimed he was \u201cthe boss\u201d but then revealed he had begun work at the restaurant just three days earlier.<\/p>\n
The Turkish man said he worked five days a week, for eight to 10 hours a day, for between \u00a3400 and \u00a3500. He said he was given the job by Mehmet Celik, Hayat\u2019s premises licence holder and current DPS.<\/p>\n
The illegal worker said Mr Celik carried out no right-to-work checks before employing him, according to documents submitted to the council\u2019s licensing team.<\/p>\n
He also said Mr Celik was aware he was not allowed to work in the UK, but he told the man he would help him regardless.<\/p>\n
The man was issued a student visa, which was valid from March 2009 until September 2009. He applied to further his leave in October 2009, but this was rejected a month later.<\/p>\n
He had not submitted any further leave before the enforcement visit took place and was considered an overstayer.<\/p>\n
The Home Office issued a \u00a390,000 civil penalty to the company that owns Hayat, The Oval Sidcup Ltd, on September 16.<\/p>\n
Bexley Council is due to discuss the licence tomorrow. Picture: Joe Coughlan<\/p>\n
It was due a month later, but has yet to be paid, and the case has been referred to a third-party debt recovery specialist.<\/p>\n
An additional \u00a345,000 civil penalty was issued on November 21, which also remains outstanding in full and has been referred to a third-party debt recovery specialist.<\/p>\n
The Home Office has since asked Bexley Council to revoke Hayat\u2019s premises licence, meaning it would no longer be able to sell alcohol or sell food past 11pm.<\/p>\n
The local authority\u2019s licensing sub-committee will review Hayat\u2019s licence tomorrow (June 25).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Home Office slapped a Turkish restaurant with a \u00a3135,000 fine after finding three illegal workers there. Hayat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11647,1023,162,70],"class_list":["post-20592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-turkiye","tag-bexley-and-bromley","tag-crime","tag-politics","tag-turkish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}