Fishing firm at centre of slavery claims was awarded government cash

The Scottish government awarded more than £250,000 to a fishing firm which may have been involved in trafficking workers to the UK.

Some of the grants to TN Trawlers and associated companies were distributed despite ongoing police investigations, and workers having been recognised by the Home Office as victims of trafficking.

The TN Group has denied any allegation of modern slavery or human trafficking and said its workers were well treated and well paid.

The Scottish government said it was looking into the awarding of the funding.

A BBC investigation published earlier this week uncovered allegations from former employees who say they were mistreated while working for the firm.

They claimed there were shortages of proper clothing, food and water on board fishing boats, while some described working long hours at sea.

Thirty-five men from the Philippines, Ghana, India and Sri Lanka employed by TN Trawlers and sister companies were recognised as victims of modern slavery by the UK government’s Home Office after being referred to it between 2012 and 2020.

Scottish government documents show that it made a number of awards to TN Trawlers and associated firms.

The funding was:

• Grants of £95,142 and £26,921 to TN Trawlers in 2010 through the European Fisheries Fund

• A further award of £78,000 in December 2013 under the same scheme

• TN Enterprises was awarded £22,800 as part of the Scottish government’s Seafood Producers Resilience Fund during the Covid pandemic in 2021

• Sister company Philomena Trawlers Ltd was also given £28,800 under the same scheme

The European Fisheries Fund was made up of EU funds but was distributed by the Scottish government. It ceased to apply to Scotland after the UK left the EU.

The grant of £78,000 was awarded while TN Trawlers was under active investigation for human trafficking.

The company was subject to active criminal proceedings when it was given Covid business support. This related to two police investigations, Operation Alto and Operation Feature.

The majority of government funding that we have identified was awarded after 18 crew members were passed into the Home Office’s National Referral Mechanism, which identifies and supports victims of human trafficking.

The Home Office did not identify TN Trawlers as the traffickers.

Joel Quince was knocked unconscious in an accident on board a TN Trawlers vessel

The men included Joel Quince, from the Philippines, who was knocked unconscious in an accident on board a TN Trawlers fishing boat called the Philomena in 2012.

In 2022 the company and its lead director Tom Nicholson admitted a health and safety violation by failing to get proper care for Joel. Neither was charged with trafficking offences.

The company was also prosecuted in 2007 for illegal catches worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

And the firm paid almost £150,000 in fines and costs after the Maritime and Coastguard Agency found defects and safety breaches on vessels between 2009 and 2011.

Mike Park, of the Scottish Whitefish Producers’ Association, told the BBC that TN Trawlers and its sister companies were ejected from the SWFPA after fresh allegations emerged in 2017.

Thrown out

He said: “We believed they’d cleaned up their act… but they hadn’t changed and we threw them out.

“Because there were allegations again. Pretty quickly. And we as an organisation, we’re not willing to tolerate that.

“I have morals. Most of my skippers have high morals and treat their crews well. And if we allowed them to remain in our organisation, then it didn’t say much about us.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for TN Group disputed any suggestion that it had mistreated its workers.

“All foreign workers were recruited through reputable and established agencies. The overwhelming experience of our workers was that they were well treated and well renumerated.”

The company went on to say that “we absolutely refute any allegation of modern slavery or human trafficking”.

• Disclosure: Slavery at Sea - A three-year investigation uncovers allegations of modern slavery aboard UK fishing vessels and hears the stories of migrant workers searching for a better life, only to find hardship and misery. Watch on BBC iPlayer.

• File on 4: Invisible Souls - Fishermen from the Philippines, Ghana and Sri Lanka speak out for the first time about how badly they say they were treated by a Scottish fishing company. Listen on BBC Sounds.