Charges dismissed against Irish trawler owners accused of labour offences
|
Version 0 of 1. Two Irish trawler owners on trial for facilitating the illegal immigration and employment of a Filipino worker on their boat had all charges against them dismissed in a summary judgment in Cork courthouse on Wednesday. Leonard Hyde, 62, of Crosshaven, County Cork and Pat O’Mahony, 51, of Kinsale, County Cork, both denied knowing that they were doing anything illegal when they used a Manila-based agency to supply them with Filipino migrant fisherman, Demie Omol, who worked on their vessel the Labardie Fisher in 2015. They told the court, which was packed with local trawlermen and their families, that they believed the agency, Diamond-H Marine Services & Shipping Agency Inc, was arranging all the correct paperwork and permissions, including visas. O’Mahony agreed that he had collected Omol and another Filipino fisherman at Belfast airport in March 2015 and had driven them across the border in to the Republic of Ireland to work out of Cork. The Filipinos had arrived on a type of UK transit visa granted to allow non-EU workers to pass on to vessels working in international waters, but did not have permission to enter or work in the republic. The Labardie Fisher owners said they had taken it on trust from the agent that everything was above board because “hundreds of these guys had come in previously” by the same route, with large numbers of other trawler owners using the same system. “I just fish the boat. I don’t do the paperwork. The agent was paid to do that. Hundreds of these guys came in previous to this,” said O’Mahony, who later asked why he was being targeted. O’Mahony and Hyde had been given the name of the Diamond-H agent, Rainier Turingan, by a fellow Cork trawler owner who had used him to bring in Filipino workers before, the court heard. Appearing as a witness for the defence, the chairman of the local fish producers’ organisation, John Tattan, said he too had considered using Diamond-H and Turingan, who had a base in southern England, to recruit Filipino fishermen and had believed the arrangement would be legal since it was commonplace not just in Ireland but also in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Dismissing the charges to loud cheering in court, Judge Aingeal Ní Chondúin said that in cases such as this, where very serious criminal offences were alleged, if “any element of doubt creeps in they must be dismissed”. The “mindset” of those involved was very important, she added; Diamond-H were clear they were dealing with people based in Ireland, and the contract between the agency and the boat owners did not suggest the agent’s liability stopped at the UK. Inspector John Deasy for the prosecution accused the Labardie Fisher owners of “a calculated scam to get illegal immigrants without work permits” in to the Republic of Ireland. He pointed to a guarantee letter written to the UK immigration authorities at Heathrow in which Hyde said the Filipino workers would be joining his vessel in the UK in Belfast harbour and leaving from Belfast harbour but had made no mention of taking them to Cork. Hyde responded that he had thought that where the Filipino workers were picked up was just a matter of logistics, and that he had been told by the agent there would be no problem if his trawler was operating outside Ireland’s 12-mile territorial waters. David Browne, solicitor for the defence, told the judge earlier in proceedings that there was an industry-wide issue with migrant workers from outside the EU and that the government had since introduced a new permit scheme and an “amnesty of sorts” to regularise undocumented foreign workers in the Irish fleet. An interdepartmental emergency taskforce was set up to address the problem following a Guardian investigation in November 2015. “Prior to the amnesty, vessels faced a very complex, lengthy and possibly impossible task to get permits for non-EEA fishermen,” he said. Earlier in the trial the court was told that, a few weeks after he arrived, Omol became sick and required medical treatment. Hyde and O’Mahony told police during interviews that they had felt there was something wrong with him from the beginning of his time on the boat. Hyde said they continued paying the agent his wages for a month while he was in hospital, and the family visited him regularly and provided for him. Both Filipino workers have since been repatriated. |