The Bell Hotel in Epping can continue to house asylum seekers, a judge controversially ruled today.
The ruling follows months of anti-immigration protests at the Essex hotel, sparked by the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl by one of its residents.
Ethiopian Hadush Kebatu, 41, was found guilty and jailed for multiple counts of sexual assault before being mistakenly released, re-arrested and finally deported.
Epping Forest District Council (EFDC) took legal action against the hotel’s owner, Somani Hotels, claiming that housing asylum seekers there breaches planning rules.
Its lawyers said the housing of asylum seekers is a ‘material change of use’ and has caused ‘increasingly regular protests’.
The Home Office intervened in the legal case, telling the court the council’s bid was ‘misconceived’.
Mr Justice Mould dismissed the claim today and said in a judgment that it is ‘not a case in which it is just and convenient for this court to grant an injunction’.
The Conservatives said a court ruling that asylum seekers can continue to be housed in the Bell Hotel in Essex was a ‘slap in the face to the people of Epping’.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: ‘This is a dark day for local democracy and a slap in the face to the people of Epping.
‘A Labour Government has once again put the rights of illegal immigrants above the rights of British citizens.
‘The people of Epping have been silenced in their own town. Their council fought for them, their voices were ignored.’
Referring to the Home Office’s intervention in the case, he said ‘Labour’s lawyers fought tooth and nail to keep this hotel open’.
Epping Forest District Council (EFDC) took legal action against The Bell Hotel’s owner, Somani Hotels, claiming that accommodating asylum seekers there breaches planning rules
Dozens of anti-migration protests have been held at the site over recent months
EFDC were granted a temporary injunction earlier this year following protests outside the hotel, which would have stopped 138 asylum seekers being housed there beyond September 12.
But this was overturned by the Court of Appeal in August, which found the decision to be ‘seriously flawed in principle’.
EFDC then sought a permanent injunction through a three-day hearing last month.
Mr Justice Mould said: ‘I give due respect to the claimant’s judgment that the current use of the Bell as contingency accommodation for asylum seekers constitutes a material change in the use of those premises, which requires planning permission.
‘Nevertheless, I have not been persuaded that an injunction is a commensurate response to that postulated breach of planning control.
‘The breach is far from being flagrant. Conventional methods of enforcement have not been taken.
‘Taking a broad view, the degree of planning and environmental harm resulting from the current use of the Bell is limited.
‘The continuing need for hotels as an important element of the supply of contingency accommodation to house asylum seekers in order to enable the Home Secretary to discharge her statutory responsibilities is a significant counterbalancing factor.’
The judge said the council’s desire to ‘find a swift resolution’ to public disorder and community tensions after protests began in July was ‘understandable’ but ‘it did not follow’ that an injunction was appropriate.
He continued: ‘Public opposition to the development of land, even if that opposition manifests itself in street protests, is not in itself evidence of planning of environmental harm generated by the development to which there is such strong objection.
‘The police have a panoply of powers to manage and regulate street protests and to enforce public order.’
Dozens of anti-migration protests have been held at the site after a resident, Hadush Kebatu, was arrested for assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman
Mr Justice Mould said Epping Forest District Council had not called evidence to support an argument over the propensity of asylum seekers to commit crimes or take part in anti-social behaviour.
He continued: ‘In my judgment, in order to begin to consider whether there is any force or substance in that contention, I should need to see an evidence-based and clear and statistically sound analysis of the relative incidence of criminal and anti-social behaviour amongst asylum seekers, as a defined cohort of persons, in comparison to a properly defined cohort of the settled population.
‘There is no such evidence before the court.
‘The fact that persons accommodated in asylum accommodation pursuant to sections 95 and 98 of the 1999 Act from time to time commit criminal offences or behave antisocially provides no reliable basis for asserting any particular propensity of asylum seekers to engage in criminal or anti-social behaviour.
‘Persons who are members of the settled population also commit crimes and behave antisocially from time to time.’
The Bell Hotel first housed asylum seekers from May 2020 to March 2021, a previous hearing was told.
It reopened as a hotel for three months in August 2022 but returned to housing asylum seekers after seeing demand ‘greatly reduced’, lawyers for Somani said.
The case of its former resident Hadush Kebatu has become emblematic of the problems plaguing Britain’s immigration and justice systems.
The 38-year-old was convicted of sexual assault, harassment and inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity in September and jailed for a year.
But he was mistakenly freed from HMP Chelmsford just a month into his sentence, sparking a huge manhunt.
After being re-arrested, he threatened to launch a legal challenge against his removal and even said he was considering lodging a new asylum claim with the Home Office.
Kebatu was only deported after being given a ‘discretionary’ payment of £500 by the Home Office in return for going quietly.
Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a 24-year-old Algerian sex offender, and British fraudster Billy Smith were also released in error from HMP Wandsworth two weeks ago.
Kaddour-Cherif was arrested last week and Smith, 35, returned to Wandsworth of his own accord.
Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to close migrant hotels by the end of this Parliament in 2029.
The latest data from June 2025 showed 32,000 migrants were living in hotels at a cost of £5.5million a day or £2.1billion a year.
One way ministers hope to reduce the use of hotels is by opening up accommodation in military bases, with six currently being considered for use.
Efforts to move migrants out of asylum seekers are made harder by the continued flow of small boat migrants crossing the Channel.
More than 10,000 small boat migrants have reached Britain since Shabana Mahmood became Home Secretary, after 2,000 crossings in just four days.
The grim milestone has been reached under Ms Mahmood more quickly than under any of her predecessors since 2022.
There were 621 arrivals on Thursday, 648 on Friday and 503 on Saturday, followed by 349 on Sunday.
It means 10,072 Channel migrants came to Britain in Ms Mahmood’s first 66 days in charge of the Home Office.
Since Labour’s flagship ‘one in, one out’ returns deal with France was announced in July, there have been 17,958 arrivals across the Channel.
Reacting to today’s ruling relating to the Bell Hotel, Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said: ‘The Government may have won today but it needs to take a very different approach to ensure all hotels are closed next year.
‘A realistic solution would be for the Government to grant temporary permission to stay for people from countries where we know most asylum applications succeed, subject to rigorous security checks.
‘Hotels are not an appropriate long-term solution to housing people seeking asylum.’
Of large sites, he said they are ‘unsuitable’ and ‘isolating’, adding: ‘The Government’s own spending watchdog has found them to be more expensive than hotels.’
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We are furious at the level of illegal migrants and asylum hotels in this country.
‘This government will close every asylum hotel. Work is well underway to move asylum seekers into more suitable accommodation such as military bases, to ease pressure on communities across the country.
‘We are working to do so as swiftly as possible as part of an orderly, planned and sustained programme. This judgment allows us to do that.’
