A BUSINESSMAN responsible for running gangs of workers building the high speed rail link through Kent has been sacked from the project amid claims that he was exploiting illegal immigrants.

Jagroop Singh Sidhu, an East London Sikh in his fifties, had been recruiting illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers, who are not allowed to work in England, says a national newspaper. He was pictured at a construction site in Ashford, where it is alleged that teams of workers, issued with fake National Insurance numbers, have been working long hours for pitiful pay.

Marjorie Hopper, spokeswoman for Balfour Beatty, the construction company building the high speed link, said that it was not policy of the firm nor of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link project to employ illegal immigrants.

Neither the project nor Balfour Beatty had evidence to support suggestions that illegal immigrants were labouring on rail link sites, she maintained.

"Nevertheless, given the serious nature of the allegations published in the Sunday Express, Fortel, which supplies labour-only operatives to Balfour Beatty and employs Mr Sidhu, has decided it would be inappropriate for him to continue working on the CTRL project, pending its investigation into this very serious matter," she said.

She also insisted that all staff were paid at rates at least as favourable as those determined by the Construction Industry National Working Rule Agreement.

Last week a Sunday Express reporter, posing as a Punjabi illegal immigrant, infiltrated one of the labour gangs and secretly taped Mr Sidhu offering to obtain a false National Insurance number for him and promising him a job on a rail link construction site.

He alleges that Mr Sidhu also told his favourite joke about how his men were working hard so that Eurostar could bring their families and friends to Britain even faster.

The paper claims that its staff watched Mr Sidhu leave home before 6am each day and pick up illegal immigrants and asylum seekers from several London addresses before heading for Ashford.

About a dozen of his men were seen working 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, for just £30 a day _ less than half the wages of their legitimate colleagues.

The rest of their wages, the paper claims, was pocketed by Mr Sidhu, who also took their overtime earnings.