PAIR PUT LOW PAID EMPLOYEES AT RISK
You’ve got to be unusually mean to rip off some of the most poorly paid workers in the country, but that’s Julie and Simon Melville for you.
Julie was the director of Lincolnshire Recruitment Services, which supplied labour to farms until a surprise inspection by the watchdog Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority.
It found that she had withheld holiday pay from 186 workers and had even charged them to use safety equipment that should have been provided for free.
Employees were also not given written contracts and drove without insurance or driving licences.
Melville, 41, from Lincoln, has now been disqualified from running companies for 10 years.
An investigation by the Insolvency Service found that she had also allowed a banned director – her husband Simon – to run the company.
He was banned for nine years in 2014 after withdrawing cash from his company Melville Agricultural Contractors Limited, leaving it unable to pay a tax bill of £64,000 when it went into liquidation.
“Simon and Julie’s misconduct was extensive,” said Sue MacLeod, Chief Investigator for the Insolvency Service.
“Removing Simon and Julie from the corporate arena will help protect vulnerable workers from experiencing further harm.”
Nicola Ray, Head of Regulation at the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, said: “Our investigators found eight breaches of our licensing standards, four of which were serious enough on their own to cause the company to automatically fail the inspection.
“We are pleased with the disqualification undertakings and hope they send a clear message that we will continue to work in partnership to protect vulnerable and exploited workers.”