EXCLUSIVE
A Midlothian pub and hotel with a long history of tax dodging and withholding staff wages makes a habit of employing teenagers and then refuses to pay them.
We revealed last month how chef/owner Craig Minto crashed a company leaving behind £1.6 million in debt and was branded one of the UK’s largest “deliberate tax avoiders” by the HMRC, which fined him £481,000 after failing to pay taxes of more than £770,000.
An Edinburgh Reporter expose on the Sun Inn’s appalling track record of tax avoidance brought a raft of new claims from former staff and parents of youngsters who had been exploited.
Our story revealed that Minto, disqualified from being a company director for five years due to “unfit conduct”, only stumped up £12,700 to settle an Employment Tribunal ruling awarded to former chef Cameron Dempster to prevent sheriff officers seizing equipment from the Newtongrange hotel.
The story generated a record number of social media comments with dozens of people revealing how young family members had been short-changed by unscrupulous Minto.
Stephen Young said: “Our son worked there as a kitchen porter, the way they treat the staff is deplorable, working 12 hour shifts, didn’t get holiday pay, keeping tips from them and he was even left to lock up some nights at 16 year olds. Horrible, despicable company to work for.”
Nicola Grant added: “Avoided this place for about three years after giving my daughter a ‘trial’ on Father’s Day. Long shift done and never heard from them again – not even £10 for her trial.”
Keiran Dodds branded the company “scumbags” saying “they scammed me out of a wage right before Christmas two years ago”, while Carol McIntosh said: “I’ve had family members treated really badly by them, they have never had my custom and never will.”
Christina Sloan said her 16-year-old son was left out of pocket after leaving a kitchen porter role: “They never paid him his last wage and the way they spoke to him on the phone was awful – what an example to set to any young person,” while Gael Edwards added: “My son did a trial day there (8 hours). Despite repeated phone calls he wasn’t paid anything.”
Ann McIntosh Kierzkowski added: “When they took over, they also tried to withhold our wages unless we went in and did manual labouring work, ripping out a bathroom, painting outside building on a cherry picker – the list goes on.”
Scamming employees appears to be par for the course. A former chef who worked at a pub in West Yorkshire previously owned by the Minto family, contacted The Edinburgh Reporter to say: “I worked for them for around 12 years and they continually folded, also deducted national insurance from staff wages but never paid anything to our pensions.”
Our investigation revealed that in June 2019 Craig Minto put his company CMSU Ltd (trading as The Sun Inn) into liquidation with debts of £1.6 million, which included unpaid VAT of £903,000, PAYE arrears of £750,000 and corporation tax debts of £35,000.
He then sold off the hotel assets for £96,000 to Lothian Leisure Ltd – a company owned by his father Ian Minto – which also folded in April 2023 with debts exceeding £560,000, including £371,000 due to HM Revenue & Customers and £182,000 to Royal Bank of Scotland.
Over the two limited companies, the father and son also took out “director’s loans” – funds taken for personal use from the businesses – totalling £840,000, which remains outstanding.
While ex-chef Cameron Dempster was successful in eventually forcing the Sun Inn to honour the Employment Tribunal ruling, two other ex-employees are trying to enforce payment of separate tribunal rulings of £5,400 due in unpaid wages, holiday pay and tips. The Edinburgh Reporter contacted the Sun Inn for comment but did not receive a response.
My daughter had a trial here. She was also used. No word back from them. I even called to ask for an update on her trial but was blanked. Horrible bunch!!
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