Staff at Byron Hamburgers restaurants have told how the company trapped kitchen staff in an immigration sting by calling for a meeting about cooking burgers.



In the first insider accounts of the swoop on foreign workers in one of Britain’s most popular burger chains, one worker said they were summoned to a meeting about the dangers of medium and medium-rare cooking of burgers.

“This was strange, because we already had this training,” said the worker, who has already been deported. A chef at a different branch in central London said they were told the meeting was about a new burger recipe.

The targeting of staff at a dozen Byron restaurants in London was part of a carefully planned “intelligence-led” raid by the Home Office, which according to insiders involved between four and a dozen officers at each branch.

One of the kitchen staff said she arrived for the meeting at 9.30am, but within minutes four immigration officers burst into the building. “They said, ‘nobody move, we’re immigration, stay where you are’, and then they started calling out names and took the people they were looking for aside,” the worker said.

The officers then questioned the people over several hours, witnesses said.

“I feel really sad about this. Everyone is hysterical about immigration. It feels like it must have been in the 1930s or something,” said a worker, who, like all the staff the Guardian has spoken to, requested anonymity.

Another witness said front-of-house staff were not told what was going on. “I arrived at work for 10.30am to open the restaurant as a waiter. I was welcomed by about 15 immigration officers talking to my colleagues,” they said.

“They actually were treated well by the officers, although I did hear one [officer] say, ‘I can’t wait for the waiters to come in (my best friend was one of the ones he was referring to) so I can pounce on them’. This absolutely disgusted me, as it was as if he wasn’t a person,” said a waiter.

Another staff member told how one worker was taken away in handcuffs after objecting to his arrest. The Home Office has confirmed that 35 nationals from Brazil, Nepal, Egypt and Albania were among those arrested following the raid, which took place across London on the morning of 4 July.

The government has not confirmed how many were deported, but one chef interviewed by the Guardian said “around 20” were taken to the first holding point after the raid.

“They had a list of names and some photos, which presumably they got from human resources in head office,” said one worker.

Another worker, who has already been deported, told how he was bundled into a van marked “police immigration” and taken to a Home Office immigration centre near London Bridge.

“There were 20 of us there, all from Byron. At the beginning, I couldn’t believe what was happening. But then, when I realised they were going to deport us, I felt so bad,” the chef said. “They were destroying everything I have done. I worked hard, I paid taxes and Byron did this to us. It is immoral. They were happy to employ me for years doing really hard work that no British person would do.”

After a few hours at London Bridge, he was sent to a series of detention centres before being deported. First, he was taken to Tinsley House near Gatwick airport, then to Verne immigration removal centre, a former prison in Dorset. He spent a week there, then was sent to Harmondsworth near Heathrow.

“I have had a hard life, so I wasn’t scared, I was very upset. They were not prisons but they feel like prisons,” said the chef. “We had no chance to call friends, to collect our belongings. I had things like a laptop, my clothes, all the things you need for life in London.”

He was paid £10 an hour at Byron, where he worked for two years doing 50- to 70-hour weeks, he said. “The foreign people work very hard in this country. They work harder than British people because they have come from a hard life and we need to find work. I was a good representative of my country,” he added.

Another kitchen worker said staff at his branch were told the meeting was about “a new hamburger that they were going to start selling”.



“It seemed a bit weird,” they said. “Waiters and others have meetings but not kitchen staff. We went to the meeting at about nine. But then we were waiting for about half an hour. Then, about 20 minutes later, four or five immigration officers appeared and said we had to stay where we were while they asked about our nationality and who we were.”

Staff said managers felt “betrayed” by the company as they had been told to organise the meetings. “It feels like they used us to shop staff, people who have become our friends over the last few years. I understand that they were trying to avoid a fine, but they shouldn’t be using their staff to do the Home Office’s dirty work,” said one.

“Everything had been arranged for that day. It feels like a total breach of confidence by the bosses,” said another kitchen staff member.



The waiter who witnessed the interviews at her branch said: “It was a fake meeting to entrap these guys who work 50+ hours a week without complaint. Two of the guys who were arrested were paid minimum wage.

“I was so appalled that the area manager, directors and all those at head office would do this to these guys all to avoid a fine. They were fed to the lions.”

The company confirmed it facilitated the raid at the Home Office’s request, but refused to respond to claims that it set up staff meetings on the pretext of being for health and safety training.

The company has been attacked for its allegedly duplicitous role in the incident, with calls for boycotts and protests circulating on social media. On Facebook, a group has been established to coordinate a campaign.

Amelia Womack, the Green party’s deputy leader, said the “alleged act of underhand trickery from Byron is unforgivable”. But others have argued the company had no choice in the face of heavy fines or even temporary closure, and say it should be supported.

@a_Troglodist @Amelia_Womack @lisaocarroll penalties are reduced if you cooperate with HO investigation. Not sure what else was possible — Jump, Narcissus (@jumpnarcissus) July 28, 2016

Others fully support Byron, saying they were not only upholding the law, but were obliged to do so under the Immigration Act 2016.



@kevinjgsmith @byronhamburgers @lisaocarroll They were illegal. Byron could have been heavily fined. Is adhering to the law bad now? — Frank (@Amadeus_IOM) July 28, 2016

@petepaphides @byronhamburgers @lisaocarroll Not surprising that company shown faked documents & risk huge fines cooperates with Home Office — Alan Bates (@AlanBatesLaw) July 27, 2016

Tougher sanctions on employers hiring illegal non-EU staff were introduced in the Immigration Act 2016, increasing the maximum custodial sentence on indictment from two to five years. It also introduced powers to close premises for up to 48 hours, in addition to heavy fines.

In a statement on Wednesday, Byron said the Home Office acknowledged that it had complied with its legal responsibilities as an employer, but the company had been shown “false/counterfeit documentation” by those at the centre of the alleged immigration breaches.