An Exeter curry house could lose its licence this week (Weds April 22) after two members of staff were discovered working illegally by immigration officers.
The Immigration Compliance Enforcement (ICE) team swooped on Curry King in Heavitree Road in April last year.
Now members of the city council’s licensing sub-committee will decide if the restaurant’s alcohol licence should be modified or even revoked altogether. The company behind the restaurant – Heavitree Spice Limited – was handed a £45,000 civil penalty last September for having one person there with no right to work.
A Home Office report to the committee says the penalty has not yet been paid.
The report says that when officers visited the curry house one night last April, the head chef told them he worked there six hours a day, six days a week and received £50 in cash from the owner.
Right to work checks were not conducted and no documents were shown. Home Office checks showed that the worker had had one application to stay turned down. Another application was pending at the time of the swoop.
The worker – originally from Bangladesh – had never held the right to work in the UK, and had ‘long-standing unresolved immigration issues’.
A second worker ran away when the Home Office ICE team made its presence known. He later denied working at Curry King and said he was just there to eat, but officers found his phone in the kitchen.
The second worker had arrived in the UK with a visitor’s visa which was valid from June 2024 until December 2024. He made a claim for asylum in September 2024, which was refused in December 2025.
The report says he was working in breach of bail conditions.
It goes on: “Whether by negligence or wilful blindness, illegal workers were engaged in activity on the premises, yet it is a simple process for an employer to ascertain what documents they should check before a person can work.
“It is an offence to work when a person is disqualified to do so, and such an offence can only be committed with the co-operation of a premises licence holder or its agents. It is also an offence to employ an illegal worker where there is reason to believe this is the case.
“All employers are duty-bound by law to conduct these checks.”
It also says that the fact that workers were paid in cash and ‘off the books’ created opportunities for income tax and National Insurance evasion, providing an unfair competitive advantage over compliant businesses.
And, it adds: “It is also consistent with labour exploitation indicators identified in other enforcement cases.”
Immigration Enforcement is asking the council to revoke the premises licence. It says merely imposing extra conditions or suspending the licence will not deter licence holders from engaging in criminal activity by employing illegal workers.
The hearing takes place at the Civic Centre in Exeter next Wednesday. Curry King has been approached for comment.
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