Aberdeenshire farmer fined

Aberdeenshire farmer fined An Inverbervie farming company has been fined £2,000 for supplying temporary workers to a potato processing and packaging plant without the required gangmaster’s licence.

Jacobsen GFM trading as AM & AJ Jacobsen Ltd, from Grange of Kinneff, pled guilty to the offence of acting as un unlicensed gangmaster at Stonehaven Sheriff Court on Wednesday.

Officers from the Gangmasters Licensing Authority had discovered that the Aberdeenshire business had been supplying workers without the required licence to a potato plant in Fettercairn between October 2011 and August 2012.

ENDS

Press release issued by GLA Communications and Information Officer Paul Fearn. Contact 0115 959 7069 or email communications@gla.gsi.gov.uk.

Notes to editors

1. The GLA operates throughout the UK and is a Non Departmental Public Body.

2. The authority was formed in 2006 in the wake of the Morecambe Bay cockle picking disaster when 23 Chinese workers drowned on the sands.

3. The GLA licences companies that supply labour (gangmasters) to agriculture, horticulture, food processing and packaging, forestry and shellfish gathering.

4. Its main strategic priorities are to prevent worker exploitation, protect vulnerable people and tackle unlicensed and criminal activity.

5. Under the Gangmasters Licensing Act (2004) it is illegal both to operate as, or employ the services of, an unlicensed gangmaster.

6. Nearly 1,200 labour providers are licensed by the GLA.

www.gla.defra.gov.uk