How we won almost £30,000 for a sponsored care worker whose employer failed to provide any work

After an almost two and a half year battle, an employment tribunal ruling has awarded our client, Shabin Shaji, almost £30,000 after his sponsor employer, Swan Care Solutions, brought him to the UK to work as a carer on the Health and Care Worker visa but failed to deliver any work or pay.

Stafford-based care agency, Swan Care Solutions, had issued Shabin a Certificate of Sponsorship stating he would work 40 hours a week and receive a gross salary of £22,880 per year. But like in so many cases of migrants who were sold a dream, Shabin was duped: he was enticed by recruiters into leaving a good job in India and paying vast fees for an opportunity abroad, but was ultimately never provided with any of the work promised or paid his salary by the UK employer who sponsored his visa.

Following a three-day hearing that saw Swan Care Solutions’ owner and director, Mrs Chengeta, offer inconsistencies, hearsay, and a fabricated dismissal letter, Employment Judge Edmonds issued the landmark judgement on 4 March 2026. The tribunal ruled that Swan Care Solutions’ failure to pay his wages when Shabin was “ready, able and willing” to work, amounted to an unlawful deduction of wages, and that he should be paid the wages he is entitled to. 

This is the first time a case like this - where no work at all was provided to a sponsored worker for an extended period of time, and where the employer attempted to defend their actions - has been won. Employment tribunals do not set precedents, as each case is unique with unique merits, but we hope that it offers a glimmer of hope to the thousands of other migrant care workers who have been exploited in a similar way by unscrupulous sponsors.

This is the story of Shabin and his legal team’s tireless pursuit of justice. It is also a wake-up call to the Government for the part it has played in enabling the exploitation that Shabin, and thousands of others, experienced at the hands of Home Office-approved sponsors. Despite its closure to new applicants overseas, thousands of people remain living in the UK, working under the restrictive, exploitative conditions of the Health and Care Worker visa.

Shabin’s journey to the tribunal

After reading that the UK was experiencing a major shortage of healthcare workers following Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, Shabin started to look into emigrating to the UK to work as a carer. A Computer Science graduate with previous experience in healthcare, he had never been to the UK before, nor did he have any friends or family living here.

He reached out to a YouTube influencer who claimed to know how to secure work in the UK, who then introduced him to a recruitment agent. Shabin told the tribunal how he gave £17,000 to the agent, before he was interviewed for a role at Swan Care Solutions, and issued a Certificate of Sponsorship to work for the company for 40 hours a week on an annual £22,880 salary.

After Shabin arrived in the UK in April 2023, it took a few months for him to realise that Swan Care Ltd was either unable, or unwilling, to make good on that agreement. During this time, he regularly contacted them asking when he could begin work, describing how he couldn’t afford to buy food. They kept telling him to wait his “turn” and visit a food bank in the meantime. 

The conditions of the Health and Care worker visa prevented him from working for anyone else for more than 20 hours a week, putting him in a dire financial situation. Describing his experience in the UK at this time, Shabin told The Guardian: “I was broke and had to rely on charity. I drank tap water and bought bread close to its expiration date to survive [and] looked around local shops in Stafford for free bananas and bread for those who were struggling."

“I attended church and on Sundays after worship, the good people who attend the worship shared with me some snacks with tea, for which I am very grateful.”

“I thought it would be a great opportunity, but when I came to the UK I found immigrants and British people struggling. I was in a terrible situation, feeling like no one in authority cared if I lived or died.”

Shabin reported Swan Care to the Home Office, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA), and Action Fraud. He says that none responded to him. In November 2023, he found the Work Rights Centre on Google, and was supported by our legal advice team to file a Tribunal claim against Swan Care Solutions.

The tribunal hearing and the judgement

Twenty-seven months after Shabin filed his claim to Acas, his case against Swan Care Solutions was heard by Employment Judge Edmonds, at a three-day final hearing at the Birmingham Employment Tribunal from 2-4 March 2026. Dr Sarmila Bose, Head of Employment at the Work Rights Centre, led his team of legal experts, and Mr Ryan Anderson, a Barrister at Field Court Chambers, provided representation pro bono.

Because Shabin had returned to India, he was unable to attend the hearing in person. Disappointingly, despite multiple attempts to chase the matter, the High Commissioner of India in London failed to respond to a request for permission to give evidence from abroad before the hearing. This meant the Tribunal could not allow him to give oral evidence via video link, or face cross-examination by the respondent’s counsel, Mr Nicolas Tudor-Radu.

This restriction forced a critical tactical shift. Shabin’s counsel chose to withdraw parts of the claim that would rely relatively more on Shabin’s witness evidence, including the complaint of unlawful payments to the employer. This alleged that Swan Care Solutions had received money from Shabin through recruitment intermediaries, including the agent to whom he gave nearly £17,000. Without the ability to provide oral testimony under oath, counsel recognised that this part of the claim simply "could not be proved on the balance of probabilities", explained Mr Anderson, so the strategic decision to drop it was made. This claim remains unproven.

Mrs Elizabeth Chengeta, owner and director of Swan Care Solutions, attended the hearing in person to give her evidence and for cross-examination by Mr Anderson. 

Ultimately, Judge Edmonds ordered Swan Care Solutions to pay Shabin £20,400.76 in unpaid wages for the period 15 April 2023 to 21 April 2024, and £2,168.85 in unpaid holiday pay. For failing to comply with the ACAS Code of Practice for Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures, a 20% uplift was added, equalling £4,080.15 in respect of wages, and £433.77 in respect of holiday pay. Lastly,  £1,760 was awarded (four weeks’ gross pay) for failing to provide a written contract. This brings the total awarded to £28,843.53. Read the judgement here. 

Time spent training is time spent working

Swan Care Solutions argued that Shabin could not be classed as an employee or receive pay until he completed mandatory online training. However, Shabin had been undertaking this training since 15 April 2023, and kept the company updated on his progress.

Crucially, the respondent’s visa sponsorship licence had already been revoked in 2024 for the precise reason that they failed to pay workers until after they had completed training. The letter from the Home Office to Swan Care Solutions stated that, in accordance with official sponsorship guidance, the salary paid to workers must be reflective of that on the Certificate of Sponsorship, and training time forms part of working time. 

Rejecting the employer's defence, Employment Judge Edmonds ruled that “the only pre-conditions of employment were that the claimant was in the UK, had a valid visa and was a commutable distance from the workplace.” She noted that any time spent training is legally working time, adding that the respondent's attempt to argue otherwise was “surprising to say the least”.

Treated like a zero-hours worker

Shabin’s representative argued during the hearing that Swan Care Solutions Ltd was effectively treating him as a zero-hours worker, meaning they only expected to pay him if and when it was his “turn” to work. However, this work categorisation - which bears similarities to the issue of false self-employment where employers miscategorise staff to reduce their costs - was challenged by Shabin’s Certificate of Sponsorship. 

This document, issued by Swan Care Solutions Ltd and granted by the Home Office, explicitly stated that the claimant was to be employed for 40 hours a week on a £22,880 annual salary. Because the respondent had committed to a guaranteed 40-hour work week to sponsor his visa, they could not legally retroactively treat him as an on-demand or zero-hours staff member. 

Judge Edmonds concluded: “What in effect the respondent was doing, was treating the claimant as a zero-hours worker … The problem, of course, was that the claimant was not a zero-hours worker.” 

Inconsistencies, hearsay, and a fabricated dismissal letter

This was an eventful hearing, to say the least. Most significantly, the Tribunal found that a “purported letter withdrawing an offer of employment” dated 27 December 2023 had been fabricated to support Swan Care Solutions’ defence. 

The document was riddled with inconsistencies: it contradicted the employer's own case, lacked proof of postage or electronic creation, was disclosed over two years late in February 2026, and was allegedly signed while the manager was on holiday abroad. Judge Edmonds concluded that the letter was “not prepared on the date asserted by [Mrs Chengeta] and that the information she has put forward in evidence about it quite simply cannot be correct and contradicts itself.”

Furthermore, Judge Edmonds found that Mrs Chengeta gave evasive testimony and relied on unreliable “hearsay evidence” about matters to which she had not been directly involved. Therefore, she placed ”no weight” on what she said about her employees’ interactions with Shabin. In contrast, she found that Shabin’s witness statement “is admissible and that, in respect of those sections which cross refer to documentation, can be given substantial weight.”

As Shabin's counsel, Mr Anderson, explained, this conduct “led the tribunal to find that the respondent acted unreasonably, which allowed a significant costs award to be secured.” At a costs hearing on 7 May, Mr Robert Sharp, a barrister at Field Court Chambers, put across the case for full pro bono costs of £8,700 to be awarded. This request was granted by the Tribunal. As Mr Anderson and Mr Sharp provided their services pro bono, the order is to be paid by Swan Care Solutions to the Access to Justice Foundation to help fund free legal advice.

Systematic exclusion from justice 

While this victory goes some way toward redressing the injustice Shabin faced at the hands of Swan Care Solutions, thousands of other exploited care workers never saw justice. The ongoing threat of visa curtailment baked into the sponsorship system is frequently used to silence workers from bringing proceedings. Unscrupulous employers know that many workers have sacrificed too much, financially and emotionally, to risk reporting wrongdoing, let alone bringing a tribunal claim, risking the loss of their job and their visa.

Shabin took the brave decision to speak out on behalf of himself and others risking his immigration status in the process. But in his own words, “nobody listened until I found the Work Rights Centre.”

Shabin found the Work Rights Centre on Google. We are a small charity with 14 full-time members of staff. We do not receive any funding from the Government for our work, because ministers have perversely determined, without consultation or consideration for the implications, that employment advice is not a public good. 

The exclusion of employment from legal aid in England and Wales in 2013, has decimated employment legal advice clinics. For workers on low or even average incomes, employment legal advice is far out of reach. This means that most remain either unaware that their rights have been breached or give up due to the expense. The few who plough ahead by representing themselves enter a David and Goliath battle against far better resourced, professionally represented employers, navigating complex Tribunal procedure alone.

Finally, there is the issue of time limits. Tribunals have strict time limits to bring a claim, currently three months less one day in most cases, changing to six months from October as a result of the recently passed Employment Rights Act. But without access to advice, many people are left largely unaware that failure to pay employees - even if work is not provided - is unlawful. Widespread reporting, including in The Guardian, of this case may increase awareness, but for many, time has already run out. 

By the government’s own admission, approximately 39,000 workers were impacted by the Home Office’s clampdown on care sector sponsors between July 2022 and December 2024, with 470 businesses found to be non-compliant with their sponsor obligations and stripped of their licences. In recent months, the Home Office has supercharged its enforcement efforts, revoking as many as 3,100 sponsorship licences in 2025. But the damage to workers has already been done. Many of these companies should never have been granted a licence to sponsor migrant workers in the first place. 

We first warned ministers that sponsorship is ripe for exploitation as far back as November 2023, with evidence mounting from other charities, unions, journalists and academics since. Yet the dangerous conveyor belt of licensing rattled on, as officials looked the other way. 

Because sponsorship ties migrants’ visas to their employers, every time a business has its licence revoked, it is the workers who suffer. While the government has flaunted its enforcement record, for employers like Swan Care Solutions losing their licence is a mere slap on the wrist. 

To our knowledge no fines or charges have ever been laid against these companies. Some continue to receive hefty council contracts, and are entrusted with caring for the elderly and vulnerable. Meanwhile, workers are punished for the wrongdoings of their employers, and for the government’s failure to exercise due diligence.

Ministers cannot plead ignorance. Their refusal to dismantle this predatory visa system makes them complicit in state-sanctioned exploitation. Shabin’s victory is a triumph of resilience, but it is also a damning indictment of a broken system that allowed Swan Care Solutions to exploit him for months with impunity. The government cannot simply revoke licences and wash its hands of the lives that have been destroyed as collateral damage. The Home Office must step in, take accountability, stop sowing the seeds of exploitation by tying workers to employers, and compensate the thousands of migrant care workers its own negligence has left destitute.