Wangaratta restaurant owner Farok Shaik made unpaid employee live in storeroom for 14 months
A former high-flying restaurateur who ran six Indian eateries faces almost a decade behind bars after he admitted forcing a woman to work long hours without pay for 14 months while she and her husband lived in a storeroom.
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An Indian restaurant owner forced a woman to work without pay for more than a year while she and her husband lived in a storeroom.
Farok Shaik, 47, fronted the County Court yesterday after pleading guilty to causing a person to enter into or remain in forced labour, which is a “slavery-like offence” according to the legislation under which he was charged.
Shaik promised his victim $42,000 a year plus superannuation, visa sponsorship and accommodation after hiring her through online marketplace Gumtree in mid-2012.
Instead, Shaik used violence and deportation threats to keep the woman working in his Wangaratta-based, six-restaurant empire for 14 months without pay.
Shaik promised the woman and her husband a unit to live in but put the couple in a storeroom above his Yarrawonga business Indian Tandoor Restaurant. The woman begged Shaik for her wages but he refused to pay her and threatened to kill her if she kept asking.
The victim, who worked at the Yarrawonga restaurant, Beechworth’s Wardens Indian Tandoori Restaurant and Spice Your Life in Bendigo, said Shaik threatened to get her booted out of the country.
When the victim’s husband collapsed, Shaik refused to let her leave work to take him to hospital.
The woman approached police who referred her to the Fair Work Commission in October 2012.
The Fair Work Ombudsman prosecuted Shaik in 2015 but he was only ordered to pay the couple $50,000, despite the woman being owed $85,000, and wrangled a payment plan of just $100 a month.
He was referred to the Australian Federal Police by Anti-Slavery Australia. AFP officers raided Shaik’s home in August 2016 and seized pay slips, an employment contract and other evidence.
Shaik denied wrongdoing and said the victim paid herself out of the Bendigo restaurant’s takings. Shaik, who wasn’t charged until 2017, eventually pleaded guilty last November.
The court heard Shaik’s motive was that “he couldn’t pay the wages so he chose not to”. Judge Michael Cahill said Shaik showed no remorse.
The woman, in her victim impact statement, said she was in “fear, feeling withdrawn from others” and she and her husband had both contemplated suicide. “We were just spending every second in fear and insecurity,” she said.
Shaik hasn’t worked in hospitality or owned a restaurant since 2014 but “helps out” at his wife’s Wangaratta restaurant, the court heard.
Shaik, who faces a maximum nine years behind bars, will be sentenced on June 22.
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