The quiet town of Epping in Essex erupted in violence on Sunday night. Left-wing protesters clashed with people angry that an asylum seeker staying in a local hotel had been charged with sexually assualting a child. Video footage taken from the scene can see dozens of enraged protesters shouting across from anti-racism campaigners outside the three-star Bell Hotel. Further clips showed protesters from each side trading blows, before police officers stepped in the stop the fighting.
The clashes came after Bell Hotel resident Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38 – who came to Britain on June 29 – was charged with three counts of sexual assault, one count of inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity, and one count of harassment without violence, according to The Standard. Mr Kebatu, who is originally from Ethiopia, was remanded in custody after a hearing at Colchester Magistrates’ Court on Thursday. He denies any wrongdoing.
Those in attendance protesting against the continued use of the Bell Hotel as an asylum centre said that they were local people taking a stand, while the left-wing activists across from them accused them of being “far-right” due to the endorsement of the protest by the likes of Tommy Robinson.
Despite the violence, no arrests were made, nor were any offences reported to officers.
Express.co.uk visited the hotel in May, after the Labour Government reopened it in April to asylum seekers. The site had been closed to asylum seekers by the Tories, however, Sir Keir Starmer’s administration reactivated it despite his pre-election pledge to “smash the gangs”.
Two residents that the Daily Express spoke to live on the same street as the 79-room hotel on the edge of north-east London, but neither wanted to be named for fear of “reprisals” from the hotel’s security.
One of them, a 61-year-old mother-of-two, claimed that in May 2022 her car was kicked by the illegal migrants living there and that she and her family had been spat at by them.
“We were spat at a few times”, she alleged. The former fire safety trainer also claimed that the asylum seekers had been physically violent towards her family’s vehicle. Speaking from her garden, she said: “My son was driving and I was next to him, and we came out [of the shared drive] and all of a sudden I felt a bump and they kicked our car”.