After nine years of relentless campaigning for accountability, a landmark Scottish modern slavery case has finally drawn to a pivotal guilty plea, exposing horrific abuse of migrant fishermen at the hands of a local trawler operation. For Ghanaian fisherman Joshua Amissah, the moment the court confirmed the admission of wrongdoing was overwhelming: he stepped away from the witness stand, retreated to a quiet corner of the silent courtroom, and crouched to compose himself, overwhelmed by the weight of nearly a decade of unaddressed trauma.
Amissah was one of five Ghanaian fishermen recruited to work on the *Sea Lady*, a scallop trawler owned and operated by Annan-based TN Trawlers, headed by Thomas Nicholson Sr. The vessel’s skipper was Nicholson’s son, Tom Nicholson Jr., who Amissah says openly viewed his Black crew as disposable labor. “He told us we were slaves,” Amissah told the jury at Hamilton Sheriff Court. “He said that his father had told him that any black person he worked with, he must treat that person as a slave.”
What the fishermen endured on the *Sea Lady* in 2017 matches the legal definition of modern slavery, the court has confirmed. Work demanded was non-stop, with no scheduled rest periods. Amissah and his crewmates were forced to create an underground, secret rotating schedule just to steal minutes of sleep between shifts. Food rations were so inadequate that crew members resorted to scavenging raw fish and octopus caught by the vessel’s dredges to avoid starvation. There was no formal onboarding, no safety training, and no opportunity to push back against the exploitative conditions. “As soon as we got there, he said we should just get to work,” Amissah recalled. “[Tom Jr] said there was no time and that we needed to go hunt for scallops. There was no rest during the trip.”
The ordeal only came to light after a life-threatening accident forced the vessel into port. In rough December 2017 weather in the English Channel, 55-year-old crew member Augustus Mensah fell and struck his head open on the hard deck. The only first aid supply on board was a single bandage. When the *Sea Lady* docked in Portsmouth for emergency medical care, police were alerted, launching what would become a years-long battle for justice.
After three days of witness testimony, the case took a sudden turn when Nicholson Jr. changed his plea to guilty on amended charges, admitting he failed to provide adequate food, rest, and mandatory safety training to his Ghanaian crew during their months-long 2017 voyage. The unexpected plea meant three other accusers—Kow Mensah, Gershon Norvivor, and Kojo Attah—never got the chance to deliver their testimony in court. Augustus Mensah, who waited nine years to share his account, said he was still relieved that justice finally moved forward. “It wasn’t easy for me, but I am very happy that at long last we got our justice,” he told reporters outside court.
The convictions are not the first for the Nicholson family or TN Trawlers. In 2022, Thomas Nicholson Sr. pled guilty to failing to provide adequate care for a Filipino crew member in a separate case stemming from a 2012 probe that identified 18 Filipino crew as modern slavery victims. He was fined £13,500 and ordered to pay £3,000 compensation to the injured worker.
This week, the elder Nicholson pled guilty to breaching a landmark Trafficking and Exploitation Risk Order (TERO), a court order designed to restrict the movement of vessels operated by those under trafficking investigation. He is the first person in Scottish legal history to breach one of these orders, which required him to disclose details of all non-European crew before moving any of his vessels. Nicholson moved his trawler *Olivia Jean* from the Netherlands to Scotland without submitting the required documentation to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency; his defense claimed the breach was a “genuine mistake” with no foreign crew on board, but the court still fined him £2,700. He remains under active investigation for human trafficking.
The case, which originated from a three-year undercover investigation by BBC journalists, has sparked widespread criticism over systemic failures in the UK fishing industry and government oversight of public funding for abusive operators. Charity Open Seas director Phil Taylor revealed that TN Trawlers received more than £250,000 in public funding while human trafficking investigations were already ongoing, calling the fine against Nicholson Sr. “paltry.” “This is a really concerning case, and it’s hard to understand how this firm was provided with public funding,” Taylor said. “It shouldn’t be possible for ministers to hand out tens of thousands of pounds to a business under investigation for human trafficking. This case shows how important it is for government to scrutinise the work of firms it is supporting with public money, and to publish details of historical convictions and ongoing investigations on the UK fishing vessel register, to ensure those who break the rules are held accountable.”
Detective Chief Inspector Paul McNamara of Police Scotland said the case was the result of a years-long joint operation between multiple agencies, noting that TEROs play a critical role in stopping exploitation before more harm occurs. “They allow police to step in at an early stage to prevent harm and disrupt organisations while we investigate. Partnership working is essential as we share knowledge and skills to target those who make money by exploiting others. We want to make Scotland a hostile environment for organisations involved in slavery and exploitation, to protect potential victims and keep our communities safe,” McNamara said.
Industry advocates say the TN Trawlers case is not an isolated incident, but evidence of deep, systemic exploitation of migrant workers in the UK fishing sector. Chris Williams, fisheries section co-ordinator at the International Transport Workers Federation, called for sweeping regulatory reform to guarantee basic labor protections for migrant crew. “What we need is a solution that enables workers from the Philippines, Ghana, Sri Lanka and India to come into the UK fishing industry with employment rights, minimum wage protections, and their hours of work and rest being recorded,” Williams said. “We should not allow a ‘race to the bottom’ where workers can be exploited and abused. If we’re so desperate to have them to keep this food-producing sector working, we should be paying people fairly and treating them fairly.”
To date, the UK Home Office has recognized 35 former TN Trawlers workers as official victims of modern slavery, following investigative reporting by the BBC that first exposed the widespread abuse in 2024’s *Slavery At Sea* documentary. In October 2024, a separate group of Ghanaian fishermen rescued from another TN Trawlers vessel, the *Olivia Jean*, each received £20,000 in government compensation for their abuse. TN Trawlers has repeatedly denied all allegations of modern slavery and human trafficking, maintaining that all its workers have always been well-treated and fairly paid. Tom Nicholson Jr. will return to Hamilton Sheriff Court next month for sentencing.
