Asylum seekers can stay at protest-hit Epping hotel after council fails in High Court legal bid
Asylum seekers can stay in a hotel in protest-hit Epping after a High Court judge rejected a local council’s injunction to prevent migrants from being housed there.
Epping Forest District Council has taken legal action against Somani Hotels, which owns The Bell Hotel in Essex, claiming they have breached planning rules by housing asylum seekers on the site.
The hotel was the scene of a series of protests after Hadush Kebatu, an immigrant who stayed there over the summer, sexually assaulted a woman and a 14-year-old girl.
The local council sought to ban migrants from staying at the hotel, telling the High Court it had become a “nurturing ground for unrest and protests”.
The council had initially been given an interim injunction to prevent 138 asylum seekers from staying in the hotel after September 12. The decision threatened to throw the government’s asylum policy into chaos after more councils said they would seek similar vetoes.
However, the injunction was later overturned by the Court of Appeal and the decision was found to be “seriously flawed in principle”.
High Court judge Mr Justice Mold ruled that asylum seekers should be able to stay in the hotel, saying police should address security concerns in the local area.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Mr Justice Mold said the use of the hotel to house asylum seekers was not a clear breach of planning control. He added that he had heard “no evidence” to support concerns that the use of the Bell to house asylum seekers was putting local GP, health, social or community services under pressure.
Mr Justice Mold continued: “There is no evidentiary basis for the claim that asylum seekers as a group are more prone to engage in criminal or anti-social behavior than the resident population.”
It said there was a “continuing need to provide emergency accommodation from hotels for asylum seekers” and concluded that “planning and environmental damage from the current use of The Bell is limited”.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said the decision was “a dark day for local democracy and a slap in the face for the people of Epping”. He claimed: “The Labor government has once again used the courts to put the rights of illegal immigrants above the rights of British citizens.”
The Home Office intervened in the case, arguing that asylum seekers should be allowed to stay in the hotel, and told the court that the granting of an injunction to Epping “encouraged” other councils seeking to close migrant hotels in their areas to take legal action.
Officials argued that “the current shelter is subject to incredibly high levels of demand.” Asylum support manager Becca Jones said the loss of berth space at the Bell Hotel would be “significant” at a time when small boat crossings were increasing.
He said the Home Office would “face significant difficulties in rehousing them”. [asylum seekers] properly”.
The Essex hotel became the focus of protests in the summer after Ethopian Hadush Kebatu was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison in September and was later mistakenly released from prison and taken back into custody.
The second asylum seeker staying at the hotel, Syrian national Mohammed Sharwark, was also sentenced to 16 weeks in prison in September after admitting assaulting two residents and two staff in the area.
A third resident was arrested for alleged arson in April. In his judgment on Tuesday, Mr Justice Mold said the planning harm resulting from these actions or alleged actions “should not be exaggerated”, adding: “These fears and concerns have not been found to be properly related to and based on the use of The Bell as emergency accommodation for asylum seekers, rather than being an understandable reaction of local residents to the actual and alleged, well-publicised criminal behavior of the three individuals present.”
Responding to the decision, Enver Solomon, chief executive of the charity Refugee Council, called on the government to ensure that all asylum hotels are closed next year. He added: “Plans to store people in military barracks or other large areas are not a viable or humane solution. They are inappropriate, isolating and the government’s own spending watchdog has found them to be more expensive than hotels.”
Steve Smith, chief executive of the charity Care4Calais, said residents of The Bell had been “subject to racist abuse and threats of physical violence”, adding: “Now that we have received today’s decision, we call on the Home Office to address and process the claims of everyone left behind at The Bell.”
