{"id":526090,"date":"2025-10-25T02:50:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T02:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/526090\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T02:50:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T02:50:24","slug":"london-restaurant-fined-120k-for-employing-illegal-workers-fighting-home-office-bid-for-it-to-be-stripped-of-licence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/526090\/","title":{"rendered":"London restaurant fined \u00a3120k for employing illegal workers fighting Home Office bid for it to be stripped of licence"},"content":{"rendered":"

A east London<\/a> restaurant<\/a> has claimed employing illegal workers<\/a> was its \u201cfirst and only mistake\u201d as it battles to keep its licence.<\/p>\n

The owners of Wood Oven BBQ and Pizzeria, in George Lane, South Woodford appeared before Redbridge Council\u2019s licensing sub-committee earlier this week.<\/p>\n

A Home Office<\/a> investigation had uncovered three Bulgarian women without the right to work in the UK employed at the popular eatery.<\/p>\n

The operators were slapped with a \u00a3120,000 fine<\/a> in January, and have been paying off the six-figure penalty in monthly instalments of \u00a33,333.<\/p>\n

The Home Office has now requested the restaurant be stripped of its licence.<\/p>\n

A representative for the restaurant conceded the owner, Ahmet Nam, had been \u201cnegligent\u201d and was \u201cfully aware\u201d there could be \u201cno excuses\u201d for not complying in the future.<\/p>\n

He told councillors Wood Oven was now operating in accordance with the law, performing background checks on employees, and all staff at the restaurant have the legal right to work in the UK.<\/p>\n

He added there had been no visits by immigration officers since the Home Office\u2019s visit last October.<\/p>\n

It was alleged the three illegal workers were being paid cash-in-hand for a few hours of work a week. Two have since been deported while the third is currently wanted, agents from the Home Office said.<\/p>\n

When pressed by committee member Councillor Martin Sachs, the owner said he \u201cdidn\u2019t know\u201d that Bulgarians require work visas since the UK left the EU in early 2020.<\/p>\n

His spokesperson said it was his \u201cfirst and only mistake in running a restaurant in 20 years,\u201d and pointed to the venue\u2019s \u201cstanding in the community\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the review, more than 400 letters in support of the business were submitted to the council.<\/p>\n

Each one is identical \u2013 though individually signed \u2013 and praises the venue as an \u201coutstanding restaurant\u201d and the owner as a \u201chighly respectful and responsible operator of Wood Oven\u201d.<\/p>\n

They have asked the committee to accept that the employment of the EU workers \u201cwas a mistake and not due to any intention to break the law\u201d.<\/p>\n

The letter says that, in \u201cfairness\u201d to Nam, there was a \u201clot of confusion about the employment of people from EU countries following Brexit\u201d and \u201clittle information\u201d was provided by the government.<\/p>\n

However, Councillor Saira Jamil said they did not necessarily appear \u201cgenuine\u201d.<\/p>\n

A representative for the Home Office told the committee it \u201cdoes not wish to unnecessarily restrict genuine community services such as successful restaurants,\u201d but there were concerns \u201cabout the way it was being run\u201d.<\/p>\n

There are no other breaches of the Wood Oven\u2019s premises licence on record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A east London restaurant has claimed employing illegal workers was its \u201cfirst and only mistake\u201d as it battles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,8610,170624,257,22046,16,15,170623],"class_list":{"0":"post-526090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-home-office","12":"tag-illegal-workers","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-premises-licence","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wood-oven"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115432536419192396","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}