'People are angry': Behind the wave of asylum UK hotel protests
source: BBC News
published: 9 August 2025
Image Credit: pexels/duda
"We are not happy with these men in this hotel because we fear for our children," Orla Minihane tells me. "If that makes me far-right then so be it."
Orla has lived near Epping since she was a child and describes herself as a "very boring woman who has worked in the City of London for 25 years." Last year she joined Reform UK and hopes to stand as a local candidate for the party.
On a busy road leading to the Essex town, The Bell Hotel, now fortified, is one of more than 200 across the country where the government houses asylum seekers.
In the last month a series of protests, sometimes totalling several hundred people from both sides - and on one occasion up to 2,000 according to Essex Police - have taken place over the use of hotels for asylum seekers. About 20 more were planned for Friday and Saturday this week.
The latest round of demonstrations began at the 80-room Bell in July, after a man living in the hotel was arrested, and subsequently charged, with sexual assault, harassment and inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity. Hadush Kebatu, 41, from Ethiopia, has denied the offences and is in custody.
The case has sparked a wider conversation about the effect of housing asylum seekers in hotels in communities across Britain.
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