FIVE Nigerians who were arrested as illegal immigrants when they arrived to work as cleaners at the immigration directorate had already worked in other parts of the service, their employer said.

The men, who were apparently detained when they turned up at a building responsible for deporting illegal immigrants, had worked in other premises belonging to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND).

The allegations threaten to cause further embarrassment to the Government, which has been on the defensive over its record on removing illegal immigrants and the fiasco over foreign prisoners who were not considered for deportation.

Each cleaner had worked in parts of the directorate on a number of occasions, one for about three years, according to a statement from Techclean, the contract cleaning company that employed them, which was read on Channel 4 news last night. The company said that it had notified the Home Office ten days before the five Nigerians turned up for work at Beckett House, near London Bridge, on Wednesday night, and had given the Home Office the names of the cleaners.

The company, according to the programme, said that the men had been paid through bank accounts, with normal deductions for tax and national insurance.

Four of the men had undergone checks by the company on their passports, national insurance cards and visas. One man, it was said, had a letter from the Immigration Service confirming that he was allowed to work in Britain, suggesting that forged documents may have been involved.

The Government has admitted that up to three million national insurance numbers are issued to foreigners with few checks carried out.

The Home Office promised last night that it would investigate the latest allegations “fully and as quickly as possible”.

A statement from Techclean, which is based in Surrey, said: “We understood last night that people had turned up for work for the first time and were stopped, their names checked and found not to be cleared, and the authorities were, therefore, called in and they were arrested.”

The statement failed to clarify the possibility that, instead of being detained as they arrived for work, the Nigerians may have been working in Beckett House.

Within an hour of the allegations being made on Thursday night, John Reid, the Home Secretary, appeared on television, insisting that the men’s discovery showed that Home Office checks worked.

But last night’s allegations suggest that the checks had failed in other parts of the directorate.

A Home Office spokesman added: “The Home Secretary made it clear last night that the fact that the system had worked successfully in this way was a cause for praise for the alertness of the security guard.

“He also made it absolutely clear that no system was

100 per cent foolproof and that there may have been occasions in the past where people had got through the system.”

Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Attorney-General, said: “The latest allegations are very worrying as they suggest breaches of security at the Home Office. It also calls into question what the Home Office had to say when this matter was first revealed.”

The Home Office failed yesterday to respond to questions about measures that it had taken to ensure that sub-contractors checked the credentials of their staff.

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