Councillors amend Forest Row restaurant’s premises licence

On April 20, a Wealden District Council licensing sub-committee considered calls from Home Office Immigration Enforcement to revoke a premises licence linked to Roochi in Hartfield Road.

This licence is held by Mr Saiful Hussain, who is also the Designated Premises Supervisor (DPS), council papers say.

According to meeting papers, the Home Office had lodged the revocation application after a company linked to the business — Vojan UK Limited — was issued a £40,000 civil penalty in June last year ‘for employing one individual with no right to work’ in the UK.

A representative for the business has told the LDRS the penalty is being disputed and that it is currently waiting for a court date for an appeal. The Home Office said the ability to appeal the penalty has lapsed, but this is also disputed by the business.

The licensing hearing took place behind closed doors, with the sub-committee opting to exclude press and public on the grounds the evidence it was due to consider contained ‘exempt information’.

Following the hearing, a representative for the business provided the LDRS with a copy of the sub-committee’s decision notice.

The document, which has been confirmed by the council, sets out how the panel decided to ‘step back’ from a full revocation and instead impose additional conditions around right-to-work checks and record-keeping.

It reads: “The sub-committee confirms that serious consideration has been given to revocation, however, on consideration of the facts of this matter, the sub-committee are prepared to step back from this sanction.”

The additional conditions will require the premises to: operate and regularly review a policy on right-to-work checks; keep copies of all right-to-work checks and associated documentation, which should be made available for inspection when requested by responsible authorities; and maintain a registration with the Licensing Connect digital platform, or a similar subscription scheme intended to support record-keeping and compliance.

The sub-committee also said the Home Office had corrected an error in its initial submission around previous civil penalties linked to the premises.

In its original report, the decision notice said, the Home Office had incorrectly stated that a company previously associated with the business had been “issued two civil penalties in 2017 and 2021.” The decision notice says this was corrected to reflect how the civil penalties had been issued in 2017.

The Home Office said these penalties, totalling £40,000, had been issued to a company known as Roochi Limited, after it was found to have been employing four people with no right to work in the UK.

According to the Home Office, Roochi Limited had been making monthly payments against these penalties, until it ceased doing so in January 2021. The company formally dissolved in May 2023, leaving around £31,270 of the penalties unpaid, the Home Office said.

The Home Office application said Mr Hussain had previously been a director at Roochi Limited. They say he resigned from this position in 2020 and this is corroborated by documents listed on the Companies House website.

The Home Office said this background put weight in favour of revocation, arguing the imposition of additional conditions would be “not proportional as previous breaches linked to the current licence holder have occurred.”

But the sub-committee took a different view.

The decision notice read: “The sub-committee consider it significant that no civil penalty was imposed in 2021, as was believed to be the case based on the original Home Office report.

“This means that Mr Hussain was not the Designated Premises Supervisor at the time that the two 2017 civil penalties were imposed, and no information has been provided as to Mr Hussain’s involvement with these matters in 2017.

“Further, the sub-committee notes the significant passage of time, nearly eight years, between the imposition of the 2017 and June 2025 civil penalties.

“The sub-committee are encouraged that at the time of the hearing there is no ongoing investigation or concerns from the Home Office or Sussex Police as to operations at the premises. The sub-committee consider this passage of time to be significant.”

The sub-committee noted how the restaurant had seen support from a ‘representative cross-section of the local community’.

The council had received 17 individual letters supporting the restaurant and opposing revocation of its licence.

The names have each been redacted in council papers, but several had identified themselves as local councillors or neighbouring business owners.

Supporters praised the restaurant’s management work to uphold other parts of the licensing objectives, such as prevention of public nuisance and the protection of children from harm. Concerns were also raised about the impact of revoking its licence on the community of Forest Row.