Two convenience stores will face licensing hearings over three employees found working without valid UK work permits.

Best Food Extra in Tolworth Broadway and Beaconsfield Food and Wine in Beaconsfield Road, Surbiton, were found to be employing staff illegally during unannounced licensing visits this autumn.

Police and immigration officers first visited Best Food Extra on October 11, and found two male employees with no entitlement to work in the country, who were told to leave the premises.

Officers also seized three bottles of wine which had not had duty paid. On a return visit six days later, October 17, they found one of the men still working in the shop, who fled after seeing the officers.

He was later caught and arrested.

That same day, officers visited Beaconsfield Food and Wine and found a man working behind the counter with a student visa.

Enquires led officers to believe the man was exceeding his 20-hour-a-week work entitlement, breaching his immigration status.

Surrey Comet:

Beaconsfield Food and Wine. Picture Google Maps

The licences for both stores will now be reviewed tonight, December 19, at a meeting of Kingston Council’s licensing sub-committee.

* Four members of staff at a shisha cafe in Norbiton were working illegally, police have said.

Kingston officers visited Momtaz in Coombe Road on Tuesday  alongside immigration inspectors from the Home Office.

Kingston police later tweeted: “Four illegal workers found during joint @ukhomeoffice Immigration and police licensing visits at Momtaz shisha cafe, #Kingston.”