Home Office working to ‘restore order' as council calls for asylum hotel to shut
Multiple demonstrations have been held outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, since July 13 after an asylum seeker was charged with allegedly attempting to kiss a 14-year-old girl.
Dozens of protesters gathered at the site again on Thursday evening.
Police have made 18 arrests and charged seven people in connection with the demonstrations.
The Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner has also reportedly urged the Home Secretary to review the use of the hotel for housing asylum seekers.
Epping Forest District Council passed a motion on Thursday to call on the Government 'to immediately and permanently close' the hotel 'for the purposes of asylum processing'.
The council unanimously voted in favour of the motion.
On Friday, the Home Office said the new Failure to Travel policy is designed to tackle non-compliance by asylum seekers and will ensure individuals who are moved from hotels to suitable alternative accommodation must take it.
Those who refuse to move without a valid reason will now risk losing their housing and support, the Home Office said.
Dame Angela Eagle, minister for border security and asylum, said: 'We are working to close hotels, restore order, and put fairness and value for money at the heart of our asylum system.
'This Government is making those necessary decisions to protect the taxpayer and uphold the integrity of our borders.
'These reforms to the Failure to Travel policy are another example of this Government's action to transform the asylum accommodation system and crack down on those who abuse our system, so it operates fairly and saves the taxpayer money.'
Asked specifically about the Epping Forest District Council vote, the Home Office said: ''We'll continue to work closely with local police and community partners, in Epping and across the country, as we fix this broken system.'
In a letter to Yvette Cooper, the Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner said the hotel is unsuitable for housing migrants and is 'clearly creating community tension', the Telegraph reported.
Roger Hirst continued: '(I am) requesting a meeting to discuss the ongoing use of hotels in the Epping Forest district of Essex, and elsewhere in the county, to accommodate newly arrived asylum seekers.
'Specifically, I am seeking to highlight the unsuitability of The Bell Hotel in Epping for this purpose, and request that its use be reviewed. The presence of asylum seeker accommodation in this district is clearly creating community tension.
'These large-scale protests are disrupting local life and placing an unwelcome burden on Essex Police resources.'
Last Thursday's protest began peacefully but escalated into what officers described as 'scattered incidents of violence' targeting police and property.
The force previously said a small number of people used that demonstration as cover to commit violent disorder and criminal damage.
Eight officers were injured and a number of police vehicles were damaged as missiles were thrown.
The latest developments come as police are braced for further protests, and the Government and law enforcement have vowed to act swiftly if unrest spreads.
On Friday, dozens of protesters demonstrated outside a hotel in Canary Wharf which is reportedly set to be used to offer temporary accommodation for asylum seekers.
The demonstration, organised by Stand up to Racism, took place outside the Britannia Hotel, with a group of anti-migrant protesters also present.
More than 25 officers were in the vicinity to separate the two sides, with police vans carrying additional staff also patrolling Canary Wharf.
Stand up to Racism placards read: 'Refugees welcome. Stop the far right.'
Motorists passing the pro-migrant protest shouted towards the demonstration, saying 'send them home' and 'they get everything thrown at them'.
A leaflet distributed by Stand up to Racism said a further protest would take place at Epping Tube station at 2pm on Sunday.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said on Thursday she was 'confident' the prison system was now robust enough to cope if riots were to erupt again.
'I'm confident we've taken the decisions that mean that we will always be able to respond,' she said.
'I'm not going to let us run out of prison places.
'Governments can't predict the future but our job is to make sure that we are capable of responding in a way that the public would expect and I'm confident we are in that position.'
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Now that a verdict has been delivered, we can reveal that two trials were started into the at the Old Bailey started in May, but collapsed due to problems identifying accurate timings on some of the computer trial was moved to Woolwich Crown Court and started all over again at the end of June.I bring up the fact that there were two trials, because two trials means two both trials, the jury were asked to watch an extremely harrowing video of Mosquera and Mr Alfonso having sex before Mr Alfonso was brutally stabbed to death on 8 July last time the judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, warned them that they were about to watch a distressing bit of footage, filmed on four different cameras set up in Mr Alfonso's bedroom. But he said it was necessary to do so to help bring justice. You could see there was a knife which Mosquera had concealed on a table under some then began with an extreme sex act between Mosquera and Mr Alfonso very quickly turned into an unexpected was wearing a white swimming cap and a black leather eye mask when Mosquera attacked him with the knife. The eye mask depriving him of one of his was so tense in court. There was total was such a traumatic watch, it was first played without any next day, the sound was broadcast, which made it so much Mosquera was carrying out the murder, you could hear him ask Mr Alfonso if he "liked it".Then you hear Mr Alfonso take his last breath. 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Recoiled in his seat When the first trial collapsed my first thought was about that poor jury that had been made to sit through all that footage for the retrial, I was in a fortunate position that I did not have to watch the murder, instead I chose to watch the second what they were seeing, I was not surprised by their man physically lurched back in his seat, recoiling from what he was seeing, another woman wearing a scarf tightly wrapped it around her mouth as if trying to protect prosecution told the jurors they blurred out as much as they video was played to them three times in the first three days. I was covering the trial, along with Adam Crowther, tracking its twists and turns for the BBC Sounds podcast Bodies in the and Adam made different decisions on whether to watch the did not look later told me it was probably the most shocking thing he has ever, and would ever, see in his the cameras captured Mr Alfonso being murdered, his ex-partner and best friend, Mr Longworth, had already been placed in the base of a divan bed in a room next had been dead for hours after being fatally attacked with a hammer by Mosquera. 'Serious demand on jury' Through the trial we heard about Mr Alfonso's predilection for extreme included accounts of domination, degrading sex acts and a world of online videos that are made, posted online and bought and sold – many aspects of which would be seen as disturbing by had claimed it was Mr Alfonso who had killed Mr Longworth – and it was following this that he had feared for his own life and killed Mr Alfonso after a loss of of everyone we spoke to who knew Mr Alfonso, no-one described him as the jury would agree and it took them just over five hours to find Mosquera guilty of both to the jurors, Mr Justice Bennathan acknowledged the "serious demands" that had been placed on them "in this case more than most"."They were terrible, brutal events and to read about it is a dreadful thing, but to see it is really shocking," he are now eligible to six counselling sessions if they have had to sit through distressing even with help, they will likely never be able to unsee what they had to watch.
