I T'S like something out of a movie. Penniless people forced to flee war-torn countries, led into the lion's den, to be mistreated and exploited.

Some live 30 to a room, barely able to move, while gangmasters rub their hands in glee as they pay their vulnerable prey as little as a pound for a day's work and pocket the rest.

It's a short, cold night as they huddle together in their squalor before being picked up at sunrise and driven by minibus to to start another 12-hour day picking fruit at a Worcestershire farm.

But this is no Hollywood fiction according to Dr Mohammed Aslam, chief executive of the Worcestershire Racial Equality Council. He says it's all too much a reality.

"We had some Portugese women who had worked on a farm for a month and then one day a gangmaster threw them out on to the streets without money or anything," said Dr Aslam.

"They couldn't speak English well and were too scared to tell the police, so they came to us and we spoke to these gangmasters to get their money.

"We've had a lot of complaints from migrant seasonal workers being paid a pittance - something like £1 a day, which is obscene.

"They may get accommodation and bills thrown in but they can live 20 to 30 a room.

"They're not living in Worcestershire, but where gangmasters operate, in big cites like Bristol or Birmingham, and shipped in to rural Worcestershire to work on farms.

"That raises health and safety issues too. You find many migrant workers without UK licences driving minibuses of people to farms."

Dr Aslam highlighted the case in which three migrant fruit-pickers were killed when the minibus they were travelling in drove into the path of a 90mph express train at a level crossing near the village of Charlton, near Evesham.

Last May, the minibus driver, 25-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker Adnan Kadir Karim, of Carpenters Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, was jailed for five years for the three deaths after a court found he was unqualified, unlicensed and uninsured and could not read English road signs.

Christopher Millington QC, prosecuting, told the court it was months after the tragedy that Karim admitted he was taking the men - recruited by gangmasters in Birmingham - to the farm.

Migrant workers have caused another sort of controversy at a strawberry farm in Brierley, near Leominster - even catching the attention of celebrity gardener Monty Don.

He has been quick to rally neighbours in the area to oppose a large village being built by S&A Produce in the area for about 1,000 migrant fruit pickers. In this case, the firm was endeavouring to improve its workers' lot by installing hundreds of mobile homes, a cinema, internet caf, pool and doctor's surgery.

But according to farmer Philip Owen, of Chapel Farm, in Bank Road, Little Witley, north of Worcester, the horticultural industry would "collapse" without them.

"We simply can't manage without them," said Mr Owen, who vehemently defended Worcestershire farmers, saying he was unaware of any who used gangmasters to employ cheap labour. "I go through respected agencies and all my workers are legal, properly paid the minimum wage, given holiday and sick pay.

"They are not being exploited, they earn a fairly good wage and it's not cheap for farmers.

"In fact 70 per cent of what you pay in a shop for asparagus is the price of labour to pick them."

Mr Owen has four migrant workers - all agricultural students from Bulgaria - on his farm at the moment picking asparagus and preparing for the strawberry season. "They live in caravans on the farm and seem very happy," said Mr Owen.

He said he was forced to seek employees from oversees six years ago when fewer and fewer Brits chose to take on the work.

Dr Aslam agreed migrant workers were providing a boost for our economy.

"They're doing jobs that no one else is prepared to do and without them it would mean our farming industry could face serious jeopardy," he said.

Andrew Goodman, former chairman of the National Farmers' Union in Worcestershire, added: "Migrant fruit-pickers are given a bad Press, but if you think about it, they're spending the money they earn in our shops, putting the cash back into the county."

Mr Goodman, who runs Walsgrove Farm in Great Witley, regularly employs migrant fruit-pickers from Eastern Europe, such as Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Hungary, via agencies.

Christopher Harvey, of Herefordshire and Worcestershire's Chamber of Commerce, recently said migrant workers were invaluable to Worcestershire and Herefordshire.

His comments came as Tory leader Michael Howard announced plans to introduce a points system for migrants looking for work in the UK in a bid to win over voters in the forthcoming election.

Mr Harvey said Howard's proposals, which would see the Government being able to correct labour-market shortages and attract particularly desirable foreign workers, instead of the many unskilled people it does at the moment, could deal a big blow to the local economy.

"Migrant labour in Herefordshire and Worcestershire is extremely important," he said.

"We have a number of communities where people have moved in to the area from abroad - primarily from Poland and Portugal, but also from India, Pakistan and the Caribbean.

"Their contribution is invaluable to the local economy, not only because of their numbers, but also as business people.

"A lot of businesses in the two counties benefit from temporary migrant labour - the agricultural and horticultural industries rely on these - for us, this is a natural part of the economy."

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