A Labour Party councillor and qualified solicitor from west London, Hina Mir, has been ordered to pay a £40,000 fine after a court upheld penalties for illegally employing a 22-year-old Indian student as a live-in nanny. The 45-year-old former deputy mayor of Hounslow was found to have paid Himanshi Gongley £1,200 monthly in cash while the student held no legal right to work in the United Kingdom.

Court documents revealed that Mir required the student to be on call 24 hours a day, six days a week, to care for her two children. Despite Mir’s claims that Gongley was merely a social visitor who helped around the house informally, City of London County Court Judge Stephen Hellman rejected her account, citing significant inconsistencies in her testimony and describing the evidence as unreliable.

The case surfaced in August last year when Gongley, whose visa had expired months earlier, flagged down a police car in distress. She informed officers that she felt suicidal and had been physically abused. Authorities subsequently determined she had been working illegally, prompting the Home Office to impose the civil penalty on Mir, which she unsuccessfully appealed.

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Judge Hellman noted that while Mir possessed an otherwise exemplary character as a solicitor and community figure, the detailed testimony provided by the student shortly after her detention was credible and unlikely to have been fabricated. Mir’s legal team argued the allegations were invented to gain immigration advantages, but the court found no substantiation for claims of modern slavery or abuse beyond the illegal employment itself.

Following the failed appeal, Mir must now settle the £40,000 penalty plus £3,620 in court costs. Local Conservative councillors have demanded her immediate resignation, stating that residents deserve representatives who uphold the law. The case has intensified scrutiny on public officials’ compliance with immigration regulations.

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