Grandson from hell in wage row.. with more of his family
TribunAl heArs of workers’ Missing pAy hotel boss who took his gran’s £50k life savings in court order
A businessman locked in a bitter legal dispute with his gran after £50,000 of her savings vanished was ordered to repay thousands of pounds to relatives.
We revealed last week how James Mill, from Irvine, Ayrshire, had failed to fulfil a court order to return the money Isabella Mill and her partner gave him when he offered to help them buy a home together.
Now it has emerged that a firm linked to the 33-year-old’s hotel business “unlawful ly deducted” wages from his mum’s cousin’s wife and her son – while the dispute with his gran was ongoing. An employment tribunal ordered the firm to pay back more than £8000 to the two former workers
ANGRY John and Isabella. Right, with grandson aged five
I didn’t think he would him. This ld has gone on n there is no hope we’ll ll and revealed how other staff had complained of missing wages.
Isabella, 77, cried as she told the Sunday Mail how she had been forced to take the grandson she once loved to court, while her partner John McCartan, 75, said he had been left “feeling sick” at the loss of their savings.
They told how he offered to act as an “agent” in their house purchase in 2018 but the cash never made it to the solicitors and they were forced to use the last of their savings and borrow funds to complete the move.
Despite a court decree ordering the return of their money, the couple are still waiting almost three years on, after a repayment plan fell f lat following three instalments of just over £500. We tracked Mill down to the Kidron House Hotel in Dreghorn. When we asked why he stopped paying his gran money he owes, he said: “That’s due to Covid.” He declined to comment further. A judgment states Mill owned and ran the hotel in 2018 when he hired Dawn Auld – his mum’s cousin’s wife – as an area manager on a salar y of £49,400,49,40 telling her he wawas buying two more hotels. Soon after, he hired her son asa head chef on a £ 25,000 wage. TheTh judgment said:said “Shortly afterafte (Mrs Auld) startedsta work as areaare manager, shesh received al legat ions fromfro staff that
Mr Mill had not been paying them properly. A number of employees complained that they had not been given pay slips and they requested these from her with evidence that their pension contributions were being paid.”
Both employees were paid by CAD Leisure Ltd but when Mrs Auld approached Mill over the pay complaints, she said she was referred to the head office of The Numbers Group, a limited liability partnership which he is a designated member for but had been registered as dormant.
The judgment added: “(Mrs Auld) had repeatedly asked Mr Mill and the staff at head office for payslips to be given to staff. These were not forthcoming and (she) began to worry employees’ tax and National Insurance may not be being paid to HMRC.
“Furthermore, (she) began to realise that gas and electric bills were not being paid either.
“Mrs Auld called HMRC and they told her they had no record of any employees at the hotel.”
Dawn decided to register to pay her own tax and National Insurance through a limited company but handed in her notice when her salary was not paid in full. Her son, who had started work in January 2019, left in March when he was not paid his full salary. Judge M Kearns ordered the firm to pay Dawn £6125 and her son £2447.
CAD Leisure was in administration at the time of the tribunal. The director was listed as Mill’s then partner, David Fleming.
We approached the claimants in the case but they declined to comment. We contacted Mill for comment but he did not respond.