4 days ago
Locations of migrant hotels are kept secret - to safeguard the 'privacy' of asylum seekers
Migrant hotels are being kept a secret from communities to maintain their residents' privacy, it has emerged.
It comes after The Mail on Sunday revealed that of occupants at 70 hotels – just a third of those used – a remarkable 312 asylum seekers had been charged with 708 criminal offences, including rape.
A former manager at one of the hotels said he had caught one migrant in his room with a lingerie-clad woman as they filmed a pornographic video to earn money on the OnlyFans website.
Last year saw mobs surrounding asylum seekers' accommodation, and even threatening to burn them down, in the wake of the murder of three girls in Southport.
Last night more than 100 demonstrators resumed their protest outside a migrant hotel in Epping, Essex.
The Home Office says there are 32,345 asylum seekers being put up at taxpayer expense in hotels, with another 66,683 in houses and flats.
But it has now become evident that the location of many of the 220 hotels involved – typically turned over entirely to migrants, with normal custom turned away – is being kept quiet on 'data protection' and privacy grounds.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, Newcastle City Council suggested last week that it and the Home Office were legally barred from informing locals of the presence of a hotel occupied by migrants, saying: 'We would not share a resident's personal information with other residents, unless we had specific legal reasons to do so.'
And a spokesman for Tower Hamlets council in London said: 'We do not announce when asylum seeker hotels are set up in the borough.'
There is similarly a lack of public statistics about crimes committed by migrants nationwide – but Mail on Sunday analysis of court records gives weight to claims that the hotels are sources of a disproportionate amount of crime.
A single hotel in central London – the Thistle City Barbican – saw 41 residents charged with a total of 90 offences in three years.
The migrant 'porn film' was reported by The Sun on Sunday following an interview with a former hotel manager in the North West.
He said the incident took place last summer at the 18th-century Metropole in Blackpool and involved a Syrian man and a female migrant.
'The guy had a whole set-up, a camera on a tripod at the end of the bed, sex toys everywhere. The couple were running an illegal porn business from the hotel. He told us he was filming it to put on OnlyFans.'
He said the man was simply moved to another hotel as a sanction.
The Government says the three big firms it pays billions to house migrants – Serco, Clearsprings, and Mears – have made profits of almost £383 million from the business since 2019 alone.
The Home Office said: 'While most people comply with the rules, our contractors must maintain order and immediately report any issues. Cases of illegal working, including online, antisocial behaviour, or safeguarding breaches can lead to support being cut.'
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'These hotels full of illegal immigrants are dens of illegal working, criminality and now we learn depravity as well.'
