One of Wiltshire's best Indian restaurants has been hit with a hefty £28,000 fine for employing an illegal worker. The Jewel in the Crown in Swindon is a much loved and an award winning restaurant that has consistently received high reviews from its customers.

However, the owners fell foul of UK immigration laws, after being found to have employed a person who did not have the right to work in Britain The business was visited by a Home Office Immigration Enforcement team between April and June, when the discovery was made. The announcement of the fine was posted to a government website on Friday last week.

A spokesman for the restaurant told the Swindon Advertiser that it was an innocent mistake.

They said the person-in-question had been drafted in to temporarily help out and that the management was unaware of their ineligibility to work.

Located at 14-16 Victoria Road, the restaurant is owned by the company 323 Enterprise Limited, whose boss is Haider Ali.

It has won many awards, and was named Best South Asian Restaurant in the Newbury Teas Tiffin Cup in 2010.

74 restaurants originally took part in the competition, having been nominated by their local MPs. They were whittled down to 11 finalists, who had just one hour to cook their dishes and impress the star-studded panel of judges.

These included top TV personalities such as Ainsley Harriott, Lisa Faulkner and Hardeep Singh Kohli.

The Jewel in the Crown served up a winning curry of seasonal lamb and pumpkin that blew the judges away.

The Indian restaurant was not the only establishment found to have breached employment laws in Swindon.

The same fate befell Magic Chippy on Drove Road, which was fined a whopping £45,000 for employing an illegal migrant.

A report by Immigration Enforcement officers found that the worker entered the UK via "small boats" in August 2023, without permission to enter or remain in the country.