Ghanaian Fisherman Told He Was a Slave on a Scottish Trawler Finally Gets Justice After Nine Years

Joshua Amissah stood up from the witness box. He walked away from the interpreter. He crouched in the corner of the silent courtroom, covered his face, and composed himself. Nine years of fighting had led to this moment.

He told us we were slaves, Amissah said. The skipper had told him that his father had instructed him to treat any black person he worked with as a slave. That skipper was Tom Nicholson Jr. His father was Thomas Nicholson, the owner of TN Trawlers based in Annan, Scotland. The vessel was the Sea Lady, a scallop trawler working the English Channel. The crew were Ghanaian. The conditions were inhuman.

The work never stopped. Amissah and his crewmates created a secret rota just to steal moments of sleep. Food was so scarce that they resorted to eating fish and octopus caught by the dredges to survive. There was no induction. No training. As soon as we got there, he said we should just get to work. There was no rest during the trip. Three days into giving evidence, Tom Jr changed his plea to guilty.

He admitted failing to provide adequate food, rest, or training to his Ghanaian crew while skippering the vessel in 2017. The sudden guilty plea meant three other Ghanaian men never got to testify. But the court had already heard how an injury to another crewmate, Augustus Mensah, became the key to their escape.

During rough weather in December 2017, Mensah fell and struck his head on the deck. The crew found a first aid kit. There was a single bandage. When the vessel docked in Portsmouth for medical treatment, police got involved. Mensah’s head injury opened the door that led to this prosecution.

Mensah spoke to the BBC last week. He said he waited nine good years to tell his story to a court. It was not easy but he was happy that at long last they got their justice. The case started as a human trafficking investigation called Operation Feature. The men from Ghana and India were later recognised by the Home Office as victims of modern slavery. In 2022, the Crown Office dropped the trafficking case, claiming there was no longer enough evidence. After Augustus Mensah and others applied for a right to review, the case was resurrected under maritime health and safety laws.

This is the second time the Nicholson family has appeared in court. In 2022, Thomas Nicholson Sr admitted failing to get adequate care for a Filipino crewman. He was fined thirteen thousand five hundred pounds and ordered to pay three thousand in compensation. That case stemmed from a 2012 investigation in which 18 Filipino crew were recognised as victims of modern slavery. This week, Nicholson Sr was fined two thousand seven hundred pounds for breaching a human trafficking court order, the first person in Scotland to receive and breach a Trafficking and Exploitation Risk Order.

Phil Taylor from the charity Open Seas called the fines paltry. He pointed out that TN Trawlers received over two hundred and fifty thousand pounds in public funding while trafficking investigations were ongoing. It should not be possible for ministers to hand out public money to a business under investigation for human trafficking, he said. Tom Nicholson Jr will be sentenced next month. Joshua Amissah is still a fisherman. He stood in that courtroom and finally spoke his truth after nine years. The whole world needs to know this is not the right way to treat a crew.