A senior judge has upheld a decision to revoke a sponsor licence for migrant workers granted to a care provision company employing numbers of "public relations officers".

De Vere Care operates care homes, including Quenby Residential Home in Brightlingsea Road, Thorrington, as well as providing services to the elderly and other patients in their own homes.

Home Office inspectors paid a surprise visit to Quenby in January 2015 and reported that four migrant workers allowed into the country as PROs were in fact working as carers.

The workers were recruited under the Government's Tier 2 sponsorship scheme, which allows migrants from non-EU countries to fill vacancies for skilled workers that cannot be filled by individuals already settled in the UK, or by recruits from the European Economic Area (EEA) or certain Commonwealth countries.

The De Vere sponsor licence was revoked last July after it was decided the company could not be trusted to operate the sponsorship scheme properly.

The company was told it was still free to hire EEA workers or employees settled in the UK, and if that meant having to pay a higher salary "so be it".

De Vere, which has its head office in Woodford Green, Essex, and also operates in Southend, Basingstoke and Ealing, attempted to bring a legal challenge against the decision.

Lawyers for the company, which has 486 staff members and over 500 clients, argued the Home Office had taken an "unfair, improper approach" in concluding that the Tier 2 workers were not genuinely employed as PROs.

They argued there had been "an irrational failure" to take into account De Vere's explanation as to the number of PROs and to properly consider the documentary evidence.

But High Court deputy judge David Mitchell, sitting in London, declared the challenge "hopeless" and refused De Vere permission to seek a judicial review.

Judge Mitchell said the company had issued 34 certificates of sponsorship for PROs for its business under its current or previous licence.

It was "a surprising number" of PROs, and the Home Office authorities were "entitled to be suspicious", said the judge.

He said the Quenby home was visited on January 12 2015 and it was concluded that four migrants sponsored as PROs were in fact working as carers.

The four were on the rota as carers and an activity co-ordinator at the home indicated that she was not aware the home employed a PRO, said the judge.

One of the four, a Mr Kumar, said he had no qualifications in public relations and admitted he worked as a carer sometimes "as they were short staffed".