A former head teacher has been stripped of her business licence because her farm workers were underpaid and transported in a dangerous vehicle.
Sheila Wood, of Drumlithie, near Stonehaven, showed a “flagrant disregard” for the welfare of her staff by allowing them to travel to work in a van which had failed its MoT.
When the sole trader’s business was inspected by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA), it emerged she had failed to comply with several standards.
She also admitted she lacked the required competencies to run her business and her licence has now been revoked.
GLA chief executive, Paul Broadbent, said: “This licence was revoked immediately because the holder exhibited a flagrant disregard for the wellbeing of her employees.”
Six separate faults were found with the van, two of the which were considered dangerous by the MoT tester.
But workers employed to pick daffodils and grade potatoes were still being transported in the same vehicle in August and driven to farms by convicted unlicensed gangmaster Rimantas Sulcas.
He received a community payback order in May 2014 when he was convicted of unlicensed labour provision to potato farms in Aberdeenshire and Angus.
When she applied for her licence, 57-year-old former primary school teacher Wood was told that Sulcas, must not to be involved in her business operations without express permission from the GLA, which she did not have.
Breaches of GLA licensing standards result in penalty points with a total of 30 leading to the revocation of a licence.
Wood accrued a total of 174 points from failing five critical 30-point and three non-critical eight-point standards.