More trouble for the retailer
Two brothers who lured 18 Polish men to work in a Sports Direct warehouse have been jailed for six years each.
Erwin Markowski, 38, and his brother Krystian, 35 have been jailed under the Modern Slavery Act for trafficking men to to work in Sport Direct’s Shirebrook warehouse.
The retailer came under fire last year for poor working conditions.
The Crown Court heard that the workers had their passports taken away and were paid only £90 a week when they should have been paid £265.
The brothers were arrested after one of the victims tipped off police.
Judge Steven Coupland said the men were “filled with false promises of a good life in the UK where they would be assisted […] to receive a decent job, pay and decent accommodation”.
He said the arrangement “became a planned and systematic scheme to traffic human beings into the UK in order for you to control them and benefit from their hard work, making substantial sums of money, living in good conditions while they received very little and lived in poorer conditions”.
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