Screwfix raided

Nugger, I just placed an order today, I hope there's someone left to post it out!

It's on:

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firm in migrant probe

Police have arrested 25 employees of DIY firm Screwfix on suspicion of illegal working, just months after the firm complained of a staff shortage.

The arrests come eight months after a staff shortage forced the online and mail-order firm to stop taking orders.

Company spokesman Richard Butler said it was too early to say if the staff concerned had been working illegally.

The firm had "robust recruitment criteria" to ensure that all staff were genuinely entitled to work in the UK.

But Mr Butler, the firm's HR director, added: "It would now appear that this process may have been breached, in certain cases, during our intensive recruitment drive in the latter part of 2004."

Dawn raid

Police, immigration officers and officials from the Department for Work and Pensions staged the joint raid just before 0500 at Screwfix's distribution centre in Stoke.

They spoke to 200 workers and arrested 25 of them, two of them in connection with unrelated matters.

The others are being questioned at local police stations about suspected illegal working and fraudulent use of National Insurance numbers.

The Home Office says Screwfix co-operated fully with the operation.

Staff struggle

Screwfix is a specialist division of Kingfisher, which owns the B&Q chain.

The Yeovil-based firm opened its Stoke warehouse in June last year, but struggled to recruit the 550 staff it needed in the new location, despite advertising the vacancies.

That briefly forced the company to stop accepting new orders while it cleared a backlog of outstanding requests for items.

Screwfix claims to be the UK's largest online supplier of DIY, with more than one million customers.

It supplies goods to the DIY trade and keen home improvers using catalogues, online and the telephone.