All asylum seekers have been moved out of the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex. the site of violent protests last summer, due to fire safety concerns.
Violent anti-migrant protests were organised outside the Epping hotel after the arrest of an asylum seeker resident Hadush Kebatu, who sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and woman while living at the site.
The local council took the Home Office to court in an attempt to remove the asylum seekers, saying the site was a “feeding ground for unrest”, but were unsuccessful with a High Court judge ruling that the migrants must stay. Now the Home Office has admitted that it has moved out all the asylum seeker residents due to fire safety regulation concerns.
It has not said whether the move will be permanent.
Kebatu, an Ethiopian national, was mistakenly released from prison last October before being re-arrested two days later. He has since been deported to the east African country and paid £500 after threatening to disrupt his return flight.
Initially peaceful demonstrations outside the Bell Hotel last July descended into violence with bottles and flares thrown at police. More than 1,000 protesters attended demonstrations outside the hotel across 13, 17 and 20 July.
At the time, chief constable Ben-Julian Harrington branded some protesters “thugs and vandals” and criticised “irresponsible behaviour” at the protests, which left police officers and hotel workers injured.
While most of those attending the protests were reported to be local people concerned about the location of the asylum hotel, members of one of the UK’s biggest Neo-Nazi groups were involved in organising the gatherings.
Two members of the far-right group Homeland were seen as the administrators of Facebook page Epping Says No, a Facebook page with 1,500 members where the protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping have been organised.
The Homeland Party was formed as a splinter group to the neo-Nazi Patriotic Alternative in April 2023, and has been described as the largest fascist group in the UK by Hope Not Hate.
Epping Forest District Council applied for a High Court injunction in a bid to stop asylum seekers being housed at the Bell hotel due to the violent protests, however they were ultimately unsuccessful in the courts.
The council argued that the migrant hotel had become a “feeding ground for unrest”. In documents presented to the court, it argued that the use of the hotel for asylum seekers was “a danger to school-age students about to start the new school year, a valid source of anxiety for their parents and teachers, and a disfigurement of the local environment”.
A High Court judge ruled in November last year that asylum seekers should stay at the site, saying that it is for police to manage any safety concerns in the local area.
Now Epping Forest District Council have announced that the Home Office has vacated all asylum seeker residents staying at the Bell.
In a statement, the council said “only security staff remain onsite”, adding: “Despite ongoing engagement with the Home Office, we did not know in advance that this was going to happen. We are seeking clarification from the Home Office on the details of what has happened and what their next steps will be.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The government is removing the incentives drawing illegal migrants to Britain. We are closing every asylum hotel and moving asylum seekers into basic accommodation including ex-military sites.
“The population of asylum seekers in hotels has fallen by 35 per cent in the last year and by 63 per cent from the peak under the previous government.”
Read MoreAll residents removed from Epping asylum seeker hotel after protests
