A law student has been fined in court after the company she was a director of admitted illegally supplying workers.
Jannicke Anderson brought the crime to light inadvertently after her own research showed it was breaking the law.
Her efforts to bring it in line with government legislation resulted in an investigation that saw the 22-year-old end up in the dock at Aberdeen Sheriff Court – where both she and the company were fined.
Her efforts to bring it in line with government legislation resulted in an investigation that saw the 22-year-old end up in the dock at Aberdeen Sheriff Court – where both she and the company were fined.
Anderson was the director of Peterhead-based PPS Scotland Ltd, which supplied workers to an Aberdeen fish factory. The company was started up in August 2010 after its predecessor Phoenix Property Scotland Ltd, a completely separate company which was owned by Miss Anderson’s mother, was hit with a large tax bill.
The company broke the law because it never obtained a gangmaster licence. Miss Anderson appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court where she and the company pleaded guilty to illegally providing workers to Nolan’s Seafoods, West Tullos Industrial Estate, Aberdeen, between August 2010 and June 2011.
EXPLOITED
EXPLOITED
Fiscal depute Alison Shaw told Aberdeen Sheriff Court that gangmaster licensing was established in 2005 to prevent the exploitation of workers. However, Ms Shaw did add that no workers supplied by PPS Scotland seemed to have been exploited, and the crime arose from not having the necessary licence.
Mr Gibb told the court how Anderson, a law and business management student at RGU, noticed the company was not legally sound while surfing the web. He said: “Miss Anderson happened to come across reference to gangmaster licences on the internet.
“At that point she checked with her mother and got together as quickly as she could the relevant application.
“At that point she checked with her mother and got together as quickly as she could the relevant application.
“Had Miss Anderson not taken some steps to retrieve the situation, it could possibly have continued for some time.” Mr Gibb emphasised that at no point in the history of either Phoenix Property Scotland Ltd or PPS Scotland Ltd has there been any issue raised by customers or workers against wither companies conduct.
He added: “This is not the classic situation the legislation as intended to protect workers from.”Sheriff Malcolm Garden fined PPS Scotland Ltd £1,000 and fined Anderson, of 6 Iona Avenue, Peterhead, £300.
By Adrian Lewis
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