The Gangmasters Licensing Authority has revoked the licence of one gangmaster, while another has been fined for operating without a licence.

Gangmaster Ian Cooper, who is based in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, has been fined £300 for operating without a gangmaster licence at Peterborough Magistrates Court.

Cooper, who at the time of the offence was running the high-street agency Swift Recruitment (Eastern), was found to be still supplying workers to the horticultural industry in Boston and Spalding in Lincolnshire on 28 July 2009, while two horticultural companies were cautioned for using unlicensed labour, but the decision was taken not to prosecute them.

Meanwhile the GLA has revoked the licence of Boston gangmaster Shane Amos, director of YF Recruitment, after finding an , what the GLA says, was an “astonishing lack of paperwork”, no draft contracts for workers and “a lack of basic knowledge of how to run the business”.