A HEREFORDSHIRE restaurant manager has been banned as a company director for five years after employing two illegal workers.

Masoom Khan, 35, hired the workers at Jalalabad Akbari Cuisine on Etnam Street in Leominster before the restaurant was raided by immigration enforcement officials in 2021.

Kevin Read, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: Masoom Khan employed two people who did not have the right to work in the UK, contravening the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006.

"This represents a serious breach of legislation and of the standards expected of company directors.

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"As a result of this breach, he cannot be involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company in the UK until September 2029."

Khan, of Queen’s Road, Erdington, Birmingham, was the sole director of the restaurant, trading under the company name Jalalabad Leominster Limited, since October 2017. 

A restaurant now continues to operate from the same address under a different company name. Khan is not a director of this company.

Immigration enforcement carried out an operation at the restaurant in June 2021, finding two men with no right to work in the UK. The workers were in their 30s and from Bangladesh. One told investigators he had worked at the restaurant for two months while the other said had been there since before the Covid pandemic.

Khan had employed them without conducting checks that they had the right to work in the UK.

Immigration enforcement fined the company £20,000 but the penalty remained unpaid when Jalalabad went into liquidation in December 2021 with liabilities of more than £73,000.

Matthew Foster, the Home Office’s immigration compliance enforcement lead for the West Midlands, said: "This longstanding investigation into illegal working in Herefordshire and the resulting penalty for Masoom Khan is a great example of collaborative working between government agencies to combat breaches in employment legislation.

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"Employers have a responsibility to carry out thorough checks on individuals prior to employment to ensure that they have the right to work in the UK. A failure to do so may lead to further action being taken by the regulator."

The Secretary of State for Business and Trade accepted a disqualification undertaking from Khan, and his five-year ban began on Tuesday, September 17.

The disqualification prevents Khan from becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.