Hidden horror

From the outside, the three-bedroom townhouse on Horton Road in Hackney, east London, looked like any other ordinary council home. In fact, it had been the focus of a five-month joint investigation by the police, housing workers and immigration officials. And when it was raided early this month, a total of 19 people – 18 Chinese and one Iranian – were found to have been living in intolerably cramped conditions at the property (HT 11 March, page 8).

The immigrants were squeezed into garden sheds and small wooden constructions described by one housing officer as no more than kennels; one man was living in a room that measured less than two metres by one. “We are not easily shocked,” says Tony Brindle*, a member of Hackney council’s estate safety team, “but this was extremely disturbing.”

It was only thanks to the diligence of Hackney council’s housing staff, working in partnership with the Home Office’s Immigration and Nationality Directorate, that this suspected clearing house for illegal foreign workers was uncovered. “This was a big success – a really good example of how councils and registered social landlords can work with immigration staff,” says a Home Office spokeswoman. So how exactly did the housing department do it?

The estate safety team was first called in after Hackney’s gas servicing team couldn’t gain access to the property. The house was registered as having five tenants, a Chinese woman and her four children, and they were the only people at the address when the team was first admitted to the house.

“It was quite low profile,” explains Brindle. “We interviewed the tenant in the living room with her daughter acting as an interpreter and went through who was supposed to be living there. Then I said: ‘We have reason to believe you’ve got other accommodation here – would you object to my colleague and I having a look round?’ We suspected there was subletting or something going on, but we weren’t prepared for what we found.”

The officers first went to the garden, where they saw two large sheds – a lean-to addition to the rear of the property and a larger, free-standing structure, made of plywood with corrugated steel roofing. There was an electricity cable running from the house to both sheds, and they had been divided into separate rooms, three in one and four in the other. Through the windows, the two officers saw beds and personal effects. “All rooms in the sheds were locked and when we asked if the tenant could unlock the rooms, she said she didn’t have keys,” he says. The keys to some of the rooms inside the house were not available either. In the attic, Brindle was amazed to find six mattresses, sleeping bags, television sets, radios and kettles.

“We’re not allowed to force entry to locked rooms but once we’d seen the bedding in the attic, it was obvious that people were living there. I made it clear we knew she’d breached her tenancy and we’d be back to investigate.”

Sam Lister, policy officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing, says that large authorities find it hard to keep track of tenants’ identities. “Landlords ought to be looking at tenants they haven’t been in contact with for a while. They should make a courtesy call to check whether the tenants are satisfied with the service.” This is not just about good customer services – it can unearth difficult situations. Lister says: “It is a good way of picking up on vulnerable people who might need help.”

Brindle did return, in November and again in December, but both times the tenant refused entry. After the first refusal, he contacted the Home Office’s Immigration and Nationality Directorate. “We’ve got very good contacts with the IND and my colleague deals with them quite often. Once we’d forwarded details of the case to them, they came to see us quite promptly.”

The IND said they needed more information to proceed, so the housing department began surveillance of the property. There are strict rules governing surveillance, and landlords must make sure the methods used are in compliance with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

“The law has become very clear … Now we need to get authorisation,” says Brindle.

“We can’t put a property under surveillance just for a person who’s not paying the rent – we have to be convinced that there is some serious criminal activity going on.”

The housing officers and immigration officials worked closely together to collect enough evidence to move in. They were hoping surveillance would reveal large numbers of people coming and going.

“I was concerned that the visits had frightened people off,” says Brindle.

“They did initially restrict the numbers, but by February, they were back up again.”

By 7 March, immigration officials were confident they had enough evidence to proceed with the raid and called in the police. A raid was jointly planned by the council and immigration authorities. Brindle and a colleague went along to represent the council, and the immigration officers interviewed the people individually. Three interpreters were provided as part of the operation and they found out that the people came from the southern Chinese province of Fujiang. Most of them were asleep when the raid took place at about 10.30am and white shirts and black suits hanging up around the property seemed to indicate they were working in hotels and restaurants.

Brindle says the whole experience was very upsetting. “It makes you angry that people are being exploited, and it’s pitiful to see them all lined up waiting to be interviewed.

If you’re raiding serious offenders, they know it’s coming, but it is a different case with exploited people.

“They have been trafficked halfway around the world by criminal gangs, and you know that some of them will be sent back.”

The 19 people found during the raid were all taken in for questioning. The Iranian man has been released pending a decision on his asylum application. Four of the Chinese have been released as they had leave to remain in the country and nine were served with papers as illegal entrants and have since claimed asylum.

The remaining five were held for further questioning as failed asylum seekers – one of them had an outstanding application; the other four were detained and will be sent back to China as soon as possible.

The council is now in the process of issuing a notice to the tenant of the property, seeking possession on grounds of breach of tenancy. If other housing workers suspect something similar may be going on, Brindle says they should contact the Immigration and Nationality Directorate and the police sooner rather than later. “Don’t try and investigate yourself as a lone housing worker – these are organised criminal gangs. Be calm about the situation, and make sure that you’ve got everything right, that the surveillance is right and that the raid’s worth doing.

“You need a multi-agency approach to a situation like this – there are a lot of people willing to help you if you ask.”