Labour Councillor Fined £40,000 After Employing Illegal Indian Students Immigrant, Paid Cash-in-Hand. A Labour councillor from west London has lost an appeal against a £40,000 sentence after a court ruled she had illegally recruited an Indian student as a nanny and paid her cash in hand.
The Telegraph newspaper said that Hina Mir, 45, a lawyer and member of Hounslow Council, had paid 22-year-old Himanshi Gongley £1,200 a month to take care of her two children. However, the student had no legal right to work or stay in the UK after her visa expired.
Last August, Ms. Gongley stopped a police car that was passing by and said that she had been abused while working in Mir’s home. Later, officers found out that her student visa had run out in March 2023, and she had stayed too long.
Mir, who used to be Hounslow’s deputy mayor, had to pay a £40,000 fine for breaking immigration legislation. In January, Judge Stephen Hellman threw down her request to get the fine overturned in the City of London County Court because her evidence was full of “inconsistencies.”
The court said that Mir argued that the young woman was only a “social visitor” who would come over to “play video games, watch TV, and chill” and sometimes help with chores. The judge didn’t believe this story and instead believed Ms. Gongley’s thorough testimony.
Adam Goodchild, an immigration officer, told the court that the student stated right away that she was in the UK illegally and knew her visa had expired. She said she got paid in cash, and £400 went to Mir for rent.
Goodchild further alleged that Ms. Gongley said she felt “physically abused” and “suicidal” because of what she was going through. She said she had been “on call 24 hours a day for six days a week.”
Mir’s lawyer said that the girl made up her story to get an immigration advantage and that there was no proof of mistreatment. The judge, on the other hand, remarked that his “gut instinct” told him that the pupil was telling the truth.
Mir must pay the entire £40,000 fine and £3,620 in court fees now that the appeal has been thrown out.
The lawsuit has put political pressure on Hounslow. Conservative council members want Mir to be removed from her roles, saying that they are now impossible to hold, including chair of the housing scrutiny panel. They said it was wrong for Labour to keep supporting her as a candidate in next year’s local elections.
The report said that the City of London County Court heard that Mir kept the student “on call 24 hours a day for six days a week” to take care of her two kids.
A different article in The Sun said that Judge Stephen Hellman said that Mir’s testimony contained “inconsistencies.” He went on to say, “I can’t trust the appellant’s evidence as much as I usually would because it doesn’t make sense.”