A Perthshire fruit farm has been forced to close amid upheld allegations of racial discrimination and forcing workers to live in “appalling conditions”.

David Leslie Fruits Ltd closed in December as the business struggled and was fined £26,000 by a tribunal in Dundee this week.

Soft-fruit farmer David Leslie was told to pay more than £26,000 to two Polish students - Tomasz Kowal and Michal Obieglo - who were working as fruit pickers, after the company was found to be withholding wages and racial discrimination.

Leslie was also accused of frightening and humiliating his staff and the tribunal heard he had an "arbitrary and discretionary" approach to paying workers.

But Leslie vehemently defended his position, telling freshinfo the events had “shattered” the lives of those running the business and forced the third-generation farm to close.

Leslie believes the result of the tribunal “would have been different” if the company had been able to defend its position but could not due to financial difficulties.

He said: “These boys came to our farm after being asked to leave another farm and they disrupted the business and their fellow nationals refused to work and live with them. My office staff were threatened and the police were called in to deal with a separate incident. The workers were all paid the minimum wage or more and wages were made up when they fell below that level.

“The facilities were inspected by the main buyers, the local authorities and industry bodies before and during the season and we were fully audited by the industry.

“I have grown fruit since 1978 and in that time there have been approximately 20,000 people harvesting fruit here.”

The Dundee tribunal heard that the two men were taken to Perth bus station by the police and told to go to either Edinburgh or Glasgow, where Obieglo booked a flight back to Poland from Prestwick airport, while Kowal was forced to hitchhike home as he had no money.

Judge Hosie said: "There is no doubt that the discrimination in this case is serious.

"It caused the claimants considerable distress, leaving them at one point in the situation where they feared they would be left stranded and homeless in a foreign country with no money to get home or even imprisoned for an offence which had been fabricated.

"They were treated appallingly, without any common decency or respect, and left frightened and humiliated."

David Leslie Fruits Ltd is now looking into the possibility of mounting an appeal. In early December 2009, it had a full farm sale before closing.

In 2008, David Leslie Fruits Limited was forced to send 125 Bulgarian workers home who had been on the post-workers scheme and left mid-season. The business lost £1 million of fruit that was left rotting in the fields.

In January, David Leslie Fruits Ltd was prosecuted for using an unlicensed Bulgarian gangmaster. After pleading guilty in Perth Sheriff Court, the company was sentenced to pay a fine of £500.

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