'Please don't move us': Epping asylum seeker speaks to ITV News after High Court ruling
An asylum seeker living in the Bell Hotel in Epping has told ITV News he feels "helpless" after the High Court ruled that migrants should be moved out of the hotel.
In the first interview with an asylum seeker in the hotel since the council won a legal challenge on Tuesday, Khadar Mohamed told ITV News his message to the people of Epping was: "Please don't do this to us".
"Please don't move us, if you move us everyone else will want to do the same to us," he said.
It comes as more than 20 other local councils told ITV News they were looking closely at the ruling to consider their next steps.
And Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch is encouraging Tory councils to fight asylum hotels in their areas.
In a letter to all Conservative controlled councils, she welcomed the ruling in favour of Epping Forest District Council, writing: "I am encouraging Conservative council leaders to take the same steps if your legal advice supports it."
However, for Mohamed, 24, who is from Somalia, said the High Court decision was "scary" and "emotionally painful".
He told ITV News Senior Producer Nathan Lee he was surprised by the mass protests outside the Essex hotel in recent weeks.
"I never thought I'd be coming here and then that would be happening to me, people not wanting me there," he said.
On Tuesday, a High Court judge ruled the former Bell Hotel in Epping must stop housing asylum seekers by September 12.
The hotel has been at the centre of a series of protests in recent weeks after an asylum seeker who was staying there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu has denied the charges against him and is due to stand trial later this month.
A second man who resides at the hotel, Syrian national Mohammed Sharwarq, has separately been charged with seven offences, while several other men have been charged over disorder outside the hotel.
Mohamed told ITV News that since the arrests, he had found the situation "hostile" and "difficult".
"Everything changed," he said.
"Now we're seen as criminals, before we were just normal people."
But Mohamed said he wanted to speak out because - "I want to make the people know that I'm not what they say I am".
"After the incident, people look at you and they're scared for their life, they're scared for their kids and pushing them behind their backs.
"I'm not here to harm anybody, I'm here to look for safety, to look for a better life," he insisted.
Mohamed travelled through Turkey, Austria and Germany before crossing the channel to get to the UK, and has now been granted asylum.
He said he thinks the people of Epping "have a reason to be mad" because of the number of asylum seekers coming to the area.
"I know they're mad over the whole thing about the government and how they dealt with this - I'm sorry, but I'm not at fault, I'm looking for a better life," he said.
"I'm not trying to take anything from them, not trying to make their lives difficult," Mohamed insisted.
"The only offence I've committed is coming to this country illegally, I'll confess to that. But I had to do it - I had no option," he told ITV News.
Th e government says it is looking at "contingency options" for asylum seekers at the Bell Hotel in Epping, insisting it will also "find alternative locations" for other asylum seekers in hotels across the country.
Responding to the ruling, Home Office minister Dan Jarvis said: "We're looking very carefully at the court ruling that was handed down yesterday, we'll want to identify a range of contingency options for how those people can be appropriately accommodated elsewhere."
Jarvis refused to say what the alternative locations for asylum seekers would be, insisting "it would vary depending on different locations", and the government will "have to look at a range of different scenarios".
Multiple councils are now considering the Epping ruling to see whether they could mount similar legal challenges.ITV News has contacted every council across the country to ask how they intend to respond to the High Court judgement.
So far, 24 said they were looking closely at it to consider their next steps, leaving open the option of taking their own legal action.
A Labour Party spokesperson, responding to Kemi Badenoch's letter to Tory councils on asylum hotels, said: "This is desperate and hypocritical nonsense from the architects of the broken asylum system.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Powys County Times
25 minutes ago
- Powys County Times
Noel Clarke set to learn outcome of libel claim against Guardian publisher
Actor Noel Clarke is set to discover whether he has been successful in his High Court libel claim against the publisher of the Guardian on Friday. Clarke, 49, is suing Guardian News and Media (GNM) over seven articles and a podcast, including an article in April 2021 that said 20 women who knew him professionally had come forward with allegations of misconduct. Clarke denies the allegations, while GNM is defending its reporting as being both true and in the public interest. A trial earlier this year heard from multiple witnesses who made accusations against Clarke, including that he had allegedly shared nude photographs of them without their consent, groped them, and asked them to look at him when he was exposed. Barristers for Clarke told the court that there is a conspiracy of people with financial and personal grudges against him who engineered his downfall because they could not bear to see him receive a Bafta award. Mrs Justice Steyn is set to hand down her ruling at 10.30am on Friday. The trial of the libel claim was held from early March to early April at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Clarke, who has previously appeared in TV shows including Doctor Who, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Bulletproof, gave evidence over several days. At one stage, he appeared visibly emotional as he claimed the publisher had 'smashed my life'. He said: 'They have smashed my life for four years with this rubbish, this nonsense. Four years.' He continued: 'I did not do this, I would not do this. I have got children. This is not true.' He later said that while he was 'a flawed guy', he added: 'The reason I stand here four years later is I am not what they have branded me.' Philip Williams, representing the actor, said that his client was a 'casualty' of a media 'purge' following the emergence of the MeToo movement. He continued that Clarke was made a 'scapegoat' and was an 'easy target' because he was at the height of his success when the media industry 'zealously sought to correct itself'. The barrister also criticised the Guardian's investigation, saying the newspaper 'manifestly failed to do its job properly'.Mr Williams asked the court to find the claim successful, saying the Guardian's reporting has caused serious harm to Clarke's career, with 'continuing hostile reactions online and in public discourse'. Gavin Millar KC, for GNM, said there is 'not a shred of evidence' to support Clarke's claim of a conspiracy, describing it as 'nonsensical and rather desperate speculation'. He said Clarke has a 'very clear motive to lie' because he 'stands to lose a great deal'. In written submissions, Mr Millar said Clarke 'used his power to prey on and harass female colleagues' over a period of 15 years. He said: 'This was a careful and thorough investigation conducted conscientiously by Guardian journalists who were aware of the potential pitfalls. 'They received information from a wide range of sources with direct evidence of misconduct and in each case carefully considered and tested the information they were given, electing to publish only such information as they believed was credible.'
North Wales Chronicle
an hour ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Fresh wave of asylum hotel protests expected after Epping ruling
It comes as the latest figures showed there were more than 32,000 asylum seekers in hotels, marking a rise of 8% during Labour's first year in office. Stand Up To Racism is preparing to hold counter-protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers on Friday, including in Bournemouth, Cardiff and Leeds, with further demonstrations expected on Saturday. Meanwhile, councils across the country controlled by Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK are investigating whether they could pursue legal challenges against asylum hotels. This follows a judge granting Epping Forest District Council a temporary injunction on Tuesday that blocked asylum seekers from being housed at the Bell Hotel in Essex. The council had argued the injunction was needed amid 'unprecedented levels of protest and disruption' in connection with asylum seeker accommodation. Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said the people of Epping who protested and its council have 'led the way', writing in The Telegraph that 'our country's patience has snapped'. His Conservative colleague Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said on Thursday that people have 'every right' to protest over asylum hotels in their areas. Labour has pledged to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the end of this parliament in 2029. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper insisted Labour had taken 'crucial steps' in the past year towards this by cutting the asylum backlog and money spent on the asylum system, increasing returns of failed asylum seekers and overhauling appeals. While the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels has risen, Government spending on asylum in the UK is down 12%, data published on Thursday showed. The number waiting on an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of June dropped below 100,000 for the first time in four years. Asylum seekers and their families can be housed in temporary accommodation, known as contingency accommodation, if they are awaiting assessment of their claim or have had a claim approved and there is not enough longer-term accommodation available. When there is not enough housing, the Home Office – which has a legal obligation to provide accommodation to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute – can move people to alternatives such as hotels and large sites, like former military bases. Amid hotel protests, campaigners including Rape Crisis and Refuge have warned conversations about violence against women and girls are being 'hijacked by an anti-migrant agenda' which they argued fuels divisions and harms survivors.
North Wales Chronicle
an hour ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Lucy Connolly to speak out for first time since being released from prison
The 42-year-old, wife of Conservative councillor Raymond Connolly, left HMP Peterborough on Thursday morning and it is understood she will be doing limited media interviews a day after walking free. She spent time with her husband, daughter and parents on the day of her release and was pictured walking her dogs in the evening, the Daily Mail reported. Ms Connolly was handed a 31-month sentence after she posted on X: 'Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care … if that makes me racist so be it.' She pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing 'threatening or abusive' written material on X and was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court in October last year. The former childminder, from Northampton, was ordered to serve 40% of her sentence in prison before being released on licence. It is understood that Ms Connolly was a passenger in a white taxi which left HMP Peterborough via the vehicle airlock, a set of two gates exiting the prison, shortly after 10am on Thursday. Her case has sparked debate, with some criticising her sentence as excessive. Reacting to her release, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Connolly's sentence was 'harsher than the sentences handed down for bricks thrown at police or actual rioting'. In a post on X, Ms Badenoch compared Ms Connolly's case with that of Ricky Jones, a suspended Labour councillor who was found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder at an anti-racism rally in the wake of the Southport murders. Writing on X, Mrs Badenoch said: 'Juries are a cornerstone of justice, but we shouldn't have to rely on them to protect basic freedoms. 'Protecting people from words should not be given greater weight in law than public safety. If the law does this, then the law itself is broken – and it's time Parliament looked again at the Public Order Act.' Reform UK leader Nigel Farage described Ms Connolly's case as a 'symbol of Keir Starmer's authoritarian, broken, two-tier Britain'. Welcome to freedom, Lucy Connolly. You are now a symbol of Keir Starmer's authoritarian, broken, two-tier Britain. — Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) August 21, 2025 A bid to challenge her sentence at the Court of Appeal was dismissed in May, which was described by Mr Connolly as 'shocking and unfair'. The Northampton town councillor, and former West Northamptonshire district councillor, said his wife had 'paid a very high price for making a mistake'. But Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer defended it earlier this year. He was asked in May about Ms Connolly's case after her Court of Appeal application against her jail term was dismissed. Asked during Prime Minister's Questions whether her imprisonment was an 'efficient or fair use' of prison, Sir Keir said: 'Sentencing is a matter for our courts and I celebrate the fact that we have independent courts in this country. 'I am strongly in favour of free speech, we've had free speech in this country for a very long time and we protect it fiercely. 'But I am equally against incitement to violence against other people. I will always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe.' Ms Connolly was arrested on August 6, by which point she had deleted her social media account, but other messages which included further racist remarks were uncovered by officers who seized her phone. The post was viewed 310,000 times in three and a half hours before she deleted it.
