"'Treated like slaves' on Scottish fishing boats,"

Thirty-five men from the Philippines, Ghana, India and Sri Lanka were recognised as victims of modern slavery by the Home Office after being referred to it between 2012 and 2020...

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

The company was the focus of two long-running criminal investigations but no cases of human trafficking or modern slavery have come to trial, although some of the men waited years to give evidence.

While TN Trawlers’ lead director, Thomas Nicholson, was under active investigation, TN Group companies continued recruiting new employees from across the world...

Several of the men the BBC spoke to had little or no fishing experience. All describe working shift patterns as gruelling as Joel’s or worse...

All the men the BBC spoke to described shortages of proper clothing, food and water...

Other men said that, despite arriving in the UK on 48-hour transit visa, they were told to work onshore in the TN yard at Annan, in breach of their visa entitlement...

Augustus, Gershon and Vishal, along with six other crew members from Ghana, India and Sri Lanka, were taken into the National Referral Mechanism system and recognised by the Home Office as victims of modern slavery. They were asked to stay in the UK as potential witnesses in the ongoing investigation into Thomas Nicholson Snr and TN Trawlers.

After a five-year wait, the case was dropped after some of the men failed to identify suspects during an identity parade.

In a letter from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) this year, Vishal was told that, while prosecutors said there was evidence a crime had been committed, there was not enough evidence to prove the identity of the perpetrator...

Thomas Nicholson Snr was fined £13,500 and ordered to pay Joel £3,000 in compensation...

A spokesman for TN Group said it disputed suggestions that workers were mistreated.

It said it always provided food and accommodation to workers and that they were “always free to come and go when ashore”...